Rural social space differentiation: The construction and representation of social relations

Abstract

Rural social space can reveal the changes of rural social structure and the distribution of spatial resources. The difference of rural development between East and West and the long-standing dualistic divide between urban and rural areas necessitate a deeper exploration of rural social space research in China. This paper systematically explored the formation of rural social space from the perspective of rural social relations, and took Henapo Village as an example to illustrate the constructive role of rural social relations in rural social activities, as well as the external representation of these activities based on this, and explored the differentiation mechanism of rural social space. The research results indicated that within the internal construction of rural social space, the village had developed internal characteristics supporting various social activities primarily based on blood relations, supplemented by business and geographic relations. The external representation of rural social space exhibited a spatial characteristic of social activities structured as “home-administrative village/natural village-county.” The social space of Henapo Village exhibited a core-periphery layered structural characteristic, where social relations in the core layer were relatively intimate, social activities were simpler, and the activity space was more concentrated compared to the peripheral layer. The social space differentiation in Henapo Village was mainly influenced by villagers, the village committee and the natural environment, resulting in land enrolment, industry enrolment, demand enrolment and resource enrolment. The decisive driving force of the village committee, the fundamental driving force of the natural environment and the endogenous driving force of villagers worked together to promote the significant differentiation of the physical-social environment and social groups in Henapo Village. The differentiation of social relationship networks and the diversity of social activities occurred and were fed back to the key actors, resulting in the differentiation of rural social space.