Urban–rural mobility, landscape, and displacement: rural tourism makers in China

Abstract

The Rural Tourism Makers (RTMs) policy initiated by the National Tourism Administration in China aimed to create 100 RTMs’ Model Bases and engage 10,000 RTMs in rural tourism development between 2015 and 2017. The arrival of RTMs to the villages and their engagement in rural tourism raise some fundamental questions about urban–rural population movement, the changing rural landscape in China, and the relationships between newcomers and local residents. Drawing on eight months of fieldwork in four RTMs’ Model Bases in Zhejiang province and Sichuan province in China, including participant observation and 131 interviews with government officials, RTMs, and local residents, this research aims to answer three research questions. Who are the RTMs and why are they moving to the rural areas? How do RTMs produce a new rural landscape and how is their middle-class identity performed in this process? And what are the relationships between newly incoming RTMs and local residents? Addressing current debates in rural studies and related fields, three main arguments are made. First, RTMs are both middle-class consumers and creativeclass producers, taking us beyond the consumer-producer binary found in much existing rural tourism research. Second, RTMs provide a new example of ongoing and flexible urban–rural mobility, taking us beyond the unidirectional, long-distance, and permanent movements of people found in much existing urban–rural migration research. Third, the relationship between newcomers and local residents is complex and shaped by the specific Chinese context, taking us beyond the form of displacement found in much existing rural gentrification research. In sum, this research contributes to understandings of the emerging new middle class and the emerging new rural landscape in China and beyond.

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Identifiers

ORCID for Nicholas Clarke: orcid.org/0000-0001-9148-9849

ORCID for Brian Hracs: orcid.org/0000-0003-1001-6877

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