@phdthesis{Ma2006,
  author    = {Ma, Hang},
  title     = {"Villages" in Shenzhen- Persistence and Transformation of an Old Social System in an Emerging Megacity},
  doi       = {10.25643/bauhaus-universitaet.771},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:gbv:wim2-20060806-8094},
  school      = {Bauhaus-Universit{\"a}t Weimar},
  year      = {2006},
  abstract  = {In the history of 'villages' in Shenzhen, rich traditional cultural resources that are directly related to the folk life in urban corporate community still exist today, synchronously agricultural economy of urban corporate community is transformed into joint-stock economy, and natural villages are transformed into 'heterogeneous' space of city. The most significant fact in the modern social transition is that modern societies have surpassed traditional societies, and cities have surpassed the country. Weber, Durkheim, T{\"o}nnies, Simmel and others devoted themselves to cultivating the essence of social transition. The most influential theory to observe and analyze it is the two-tiered approach of ideal type. T{\"o}nnies made distinction between 'Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft', Durkheim distinguished 'mechanical solidarity and organic solidarity', and Redfield analyzed 'folk society and urban society'. In those classical theories, the former transit to the later is considered to be a general rule of transition from traditional society to modern society, and from traditional community to modern community. However, ever since Redfield used the dependent relationship and interactive framework of 'great tradition' and 'little tradition' to explain various complicated phenomena in the transition from tradition to modern in 1950s, he suggested that a folk-urban continuum can be formed in the transition from folk society to urban society. 'Both terms, 'city' and 'country', are not and have never been limited or restricted to their obvious denotations: 'city' is not and has never been only urban. As a category it always encompasses (includes, embodies, embraces) itself and its opposite, the country' (Hassenpflug 2002, 46). Generally, social groups and culture characterized by weak 'potential' will take their own 'little tradition' as 'bridge' and agency, in order to enter or melt themselves into a 'great tradition' that embodies great 'potential' to seek for space to live and develop. There are many different types of transitions that villagers enter and get melt into 'great tradition' through their individual 'little tradition'. There are exploration and development of traditional resources in 'segmentation', such as the frequent relation between a great flow of peasants to cities and the network of kinship, and of earthbound relations; alternatively, there are assistances and utilization of resources of a whole corporate network, such as the traditional corporate community's organization of local resources during the process of non-agriculturization of villages; and 'villages' in Shenzhen is of the latter situation. The following conclusion can be made based on the above analyses: urban corporate community formed in the process of non-agricultural development and urbanization is an organizing dependency on which villagers melt into city and adapt to urban life. The unique inner-structure and function determine that comparing with other organizations, it has a better performance, efficiency and more humanity care. Firstly, corporate community which is re-organized in the non-agricultural process currently is the only and the most effective organizational resources that can be utilized and has significant meanings in protecting villagers' interest and benefit; secondly, in the short term, other approaches do not have the advantage and the effect as urban corporate community has on the focusing degree of public affairs in the comprehensive urbanization process; thirdly, the 'new' key connotation of urban corporate community, including its community management functions, is the main reason for which such community has the rationality of being; fourthly, urban corporate community will inevitably face many problems in the urbanization due to its inner fixed characteristics (lack of external support), but to a certain degree it has the ability to self-repair and problem solving under the precondition that, the government and society have a fair, impersonal view of 'villages', and base on this view providing multi-supports, especially providing rational system arrangement and policy supports. Consequently, in order to preserve and protect social system and cultural heritage within the 'villages', and gradually make the coordinative development of 'great tradition' represented by cities and of 'little tradition' represented by 'villages', 'soft reconstruction' rather than 'hard reconstruction' should be adopted by the government, during the recent reconstruction of 'villages' in Shenzhen.},
  subject      = {China},
  language  = {en}
}