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The turnover of labor-intensive personnel in businesses is extremely frequent and is primarily manifested in "flowing back" and in "switching jobs." Field surveys and research have demonstrated that frequent and extensive job switching, as well as the rapid turnover of personnel, has had a significant impact on businesses. There are many reasons for migrant workers from the countryside to switch jobs, but young migrant workers from the countryside are more likely to switch jobs frequently. Irrational factors affect job switching, and these factors affect the careers of migrant workers from the countryside. Switching jobs has become a way for migrant workers in the new era to pursue self-realization as well as a way for them to express themselves and has ultimately become an action strategy for migrant workers from the countryside.

This case study of entrepreneurial migrants at, and associated with, the Dongguan Humen Zhisheng School explores the upward social mobility experienced by entrepreneurial migrants as they move from their hometowns to Dongguan and become business owners. The strategies they adopt during the transition are vital to achieving upward social mobility. To transform themselves from hired laborers to business owners, they seek funding from their original social networks based on family and location and set up new social networks in their places of residence to share information and other external resources. While moving upward, these migrants use their networks to create a new, distinct social space. Although entrepreneurial migrants readily adapt to urban life, the household registration system and discriminatory regulations based on it require them to return to their places of origin at crucial moments in their lives. In terms of political status and social reputation, entrepreneurial migrants still find themse...

Based on research in a labor-intensive enterprise, this study discusses the differences between new and old migrant workers. One consists of the choice of, and attitude toward "flow-backs" (hui liu) and "switching jobs" (zhuan gong) on the part of new and old migrant workers. The authors maintain that "flow-backs" and "switching jobs" are the different means by which the new and old generation of migrant workers face future developments and handle opportunities that enable them to make subjective choices. Implied behind these opportunities are the migrant workers' different self-realization requirements, displacement strategies, and different perspectives on urban and rural life. Another concerns the self-categorization process of the new and old generation of migrant worker groups—in other words, how these groups have undergone subjective divisions due to differences in concepts and choices. By analyzing the mutual evaluations, delimitations, interactions, and even conflicts among them, a clearer underst...

Nannies are an important group of the casual workers studied. In this article, six characteristics of the group are analyzed: the nature of their work and the personality characteristics of nannies; their age structure; reasons for working; marriage and family dynamics; their relationships with their employers; and their social networks. Analysis is by means of oral interviews with nannies in Guangzhou and Shenzhen. The gender aggregation effect salient among nannies means that they are a purely female vocational group which increases the group's vulnerabilities and weaknesses.

On the basis of related literature and the author's field research in Jiangxi province, the present article discusses the process of ethnic group reconstruction and identification of the She people with the family names of Lan, Lei, and Zhong in the Gannan region of Jiangxi province, who were restored as members of the She ethnic group from their original Han ethnic group after ethnic policies were carried out in 1985. The author puts forward his personal opinions on the factors of ethnic identity and the two schools of theory on ethnic identification, namely primordialism and circumstantialism.

In the final two decades of the twentieth century, the economy, politics, and society of the Chinese countryside began several new transformations. Behind the macroscopic view of taking economic construction as the focus, this transformation in rural society has had changes in economic life, social structure, and political culture as its primary features. The substance of these transformations can be seen in the changes in, and the restructuring of, the relationship between the nation and the countryside and the nation and the peasantry. In 2001 and 2002, we researched these topics in twelve provinces and fifteen villages, doing both investigations and comparisons. Rural power structures were taken as the entry point, with respect to traditional culture, town and village enterprises, and rural governance as aspects to be considered and observed. Finally, a description of the process of transformation of rural society will follow, in order to recreate the period of reconstruction and adjustment of power st...

After Maurice Freedman's studies on lineage organization in China's Han communities, many related studies emerged. Their origins can be traced back to studies on Fenghuang village. Daniel Harrison Kulp first described the lineage groups of Fenghuang village in his book. He said that lineage is patrilineal, with members sharing the same surname and practicing exogamy; and that a lineage is composed of many subgroups, such as sex groups, economic groups, and ancestral groups. But his views concerning lineage are still ambiguous and he confuses lineage with sib. According to James L. Watson, the basic differences between lineage and sib are: (1) lineage has definitive descent relationships and its direct ancestors are known; the descent relationship of sib is not clear, and its ancestors are often mythological figures; (2) only those born within a lineage can become lineage members; a sib only accepts group members and a group joins a sib by its own choice. According to this distinguishing rule, Fenghuang vi...

This issue of Chinese Sociology and Anthropology takes up the discussion first opened by last fall's special issue on "Moving from Indigenization Toward Globalization" (vol. 33, no. 1). Once again the bulk of the articles are selected from papers given at the 1999 conference held in Nanning in Guangxi on the indigenization or "nativization" of anthropology and published in the Journal of Guangxi University for Nationalities in October of that year. Organized by Guangzhou's Zhongshan University, with the assistance of the Chinese University of Hong Kong and Guangxi University for Nationalities, the conference—like its predecessors—was a good indicator of the rapid development of Chinese anthropology in the 1990s.

Urban migration for work creates problems both for migrant workers themselves and for the governments that must integrate new populations. The four articles in the present issue of Chinese Sociology and Anthropology are based on research on urban migrants that was funded by the Chinese Ministry of Education and conducted under the sponsorship of Zhou Daming at Sun Yat-sen University.

Precis: This article investigates and analyzes one type of migrant population in Guangzhou—odd-job workers from other places. It first describes life in a hamlet where such workers congregate, then it analyzes data obtained through a questionnaire that reflect the basic situation of these laborers, and finally it analyzes some related issues. The article's basic view is that such workers satisfy a need in urban development; they constitute an indispensable supplemental part of the urban economic system and make an important contribution to urban development. Unfair attitudes toward these workers should be corrected and social problems related to them should be appropriately handled.

Since 1978, urbanization has made rapid headway in China. The dualistic configuration in which cities and rural areas were separated has broken down and a new era of coordinated urban-rural development has arrived. China is a large agricultural country in which the farming population remains predominant even today. In discussing Chinese urbanization, rural urbanization is a necessary topic. As to the road of rural urbanization, it is still being hotly debated in the academic community. This article will explore the issue with rural urbanization in the Pearl River Delta as the case study.