From beautiful village to urban residents' consumption space: Actor-network theory and the social space reconstruction of Dashiao village
Received date: 2014-12-27
Request revised date: 2015-04-24
Online published: 2015-08-20
Copyright
Recently emerging beautiful villages in suburbs provide citizens very places for recreation, and can be considered as a new kind of urban residents' consumption space. From the perspective of actor-network theory, this study analyses the social-spatial reconstruction of Dashiao village. Through the tracing of translation, including four stages of problematization, interessement, enrollment and mobilization, the process and mechanism of the reconstruction of Dashiao beautiful village and the later consumption space was explored. It was manifested in the following four aspects: 1) In the process of the transformation from an usual village to a beautiful village, there was a heterogeneous actor-network, in which Jiangning District government played a focal role mainly by improving the physical environment of the village. 2) Heterogeneous actors changed their roles through urban residents' consumption activities. Along with the quit of incentives launched by government to rural residents, market mechanisms involved, district government and market forces of foreign business and consumers allied to become alternative focal actors, while villagers withdrew to the periphery of the actor network, which contributed to the re-establishment of actor network and the beautiful village's transformation to urban residents' consumption space. In order to meet consumers' demand, everyday lives of villagers' was represented partially to show the imaged rural life, but the real lives of villages was marginalized or hidden. Non-native culture and life style was transplanted or symbolically adopted, while the original village was fading away. 3) This paper explains the mechanism of social-spatial reconstruction of Dashiao village through the two sequential actor networks and how it transformed from the first to second. The transformation of intended target, which should be decided by focal actor of the actor network, the local government, from improving the physical environment to promotion of economic development determined the direction of the reconstruction of social space, as well as outside investment managers, and consumers attended and became key actors. Changes of structure and channel of interests in the actor network lead to the exit, redefinition and entering of actors. The reconstruction of social space is an ongoing process since the actor network is a dynamic connection, fulfilling of interests conflicts and negotiation. 4) From the actor-network perspective, beautiful village was not only a place for villagers' living and the tourists' poetic nostalgia, but also a networked space which is weaved of complex and dynamic relations of power. This paper points out the effectiveness and the time limitation of government and policy mechanisms, and the flexibility of the market mechanism, which brings about interest conflicts and social injustice. In the case of Dashiao, local residents withdrew from the masters of the village to marginalized role of urban residents' consumption space, and they have never played key actors during the establishment of the above two actor-networks.
Key words: beautiful village; consumption space; actor-network theory; social space
CHEN Peipei , ZHANG Min . From beautiful village to urban residents' consumption space: Actor-network theory and the social space reconstruction of Dashiao village[J]. GEOGRAPHICAL RESEARCH, 2015 , 34(8) : 1435 -1446 . DOI: 10.11821/dlyj201508003
Fig. 1 The location of Dashiao village in Nanjing图1 大世凹村在南京的区位图 |
Fig. 2 A research framework of Dashiao social space reconstruction with ANT perspective图2 ANT视角下的大世凹村社会空间重构的理论框架 |
Fig. 3 Actors and OPP of beautiful village construction图3 美丽乡村建设的行动者与强制通行点 |
Fig. 4 The actor network of beautiful village construction图4 美丽乡村建设的行动者网络 |
Tab. 1 Comparations of basic situation between beautiful village and urban residents' consumption space表1 美丽乡村与都市居民消费空间的基本情况对比 |
| 美丽乡村 | 都市居民消费空间 | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 居民构成 | 36户本地 | 24户本地+24户外来 | |
| 村庄土地利用 结构 | 26%居住用地,13%耕地,49%林地,8%水体,4%其他 | 21%商住用地,6%公共服务设施用地,13%休闲娱乐用地,49%林地,8%水体,3%其他 | |
| 村民收入结构 | 外出打工+农业 | 个体经营+外出打工+租赁 | |
| 非农经济活动概况 | 个体经营户 | 1家小商店 | 初期23家,其中包括19户农家乐饭店,2家茶社,1家农产品超市和1家旅社。 |
| 户均接待规模 | 无 | 120人/天 | |
| 旺季游客量 | 较少 | 2000人/天 | |
| 平均月收入 | 2000元/月/人 | 1万元/月/户(个体经营户),2000元/月/人(非经营户) | |
| 形象特征 | 整洁、优美,富有徽派特色的乡村聚落 | 乡村基底叠加消费景观 | |
Fig. 5 The translation of actors by urban residents’ consumption activities图5 都市居民消费活动对行动者的转译 |
Fig. 6 The space distribution of dealers in Dashiao village图6 大世凹村本地及外来经营户空间分布情况 |
The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
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