People and land conflict governance under the poverty alleviation relocation-- The sociotechnical imagination of modern agriculture

• In Event: 50462 - Section on Science, Knowledge, and Technology Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 4: Agriculture as a SKAT topic

Abstract

The poverty alleviation relocation is an extremely important social project in western China. Due to the shortage of high-quality cultivated land resources, the project often has a serious imbalance between immigrants and land resources. However, in the current experience, this problem has not hindered the development of poverty alleviation relocation. This paper used the conceptual tool of “sociotechnical imagination” to answer the above perplexity through field investigation of three typical immigrant villages in X province. The study found that between the upper political pressure and the interests of immigrants, the grass-roots governments of the immigrant territories found the flexible governance space of “certain right, but uncertain land”, and built the social legitimacy of this governance plan with the help of the sociotechnical imagination of immigrants for modern agriculture. In the process of relocation, the grassroots government embed the vision in the relocation procedures and immigrant education, and initially achieve the governance of the contradiction between people and land after the completion of land transfer. Finally, grassroots governments promote the consolidation of governance achievements and the gradual realization of common vision through the entity construction under the linkage of multiple subjects.

Author

• Pengrui Ou, Tsinghua University