Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
8. On the whole, I am happy.
†
66.7
78.0
9. I frequently stop to greet other villagers.
86.2
82.1
10. Neighbors often come over to my house.
†
76.7
85.4
11. I often exchange things and help with my neighbors.
93.8
91.5
12. People in this village return money they borrow.
88.3
87.0
13. On the whole, I feel I can trust most people in the village.
81.8
85.8
14. On the whole, the level of trust in the village has improved over the past five years.
†
57.1
68.7
15. Compared with other villages, this village has fewer problems.
†
51.9
63.8
16. If there were a government program that did not benefit my family but benefitted the
community at large, I would support it.
96.1
94.3
17. People in this village can usually solve their own problems.
*
59.5
69.1
Somewhat surprisingly, resettled villagers reported higher levels of community satisfac-
tion on many of the scaled survey items. Resettled villagers were more likely to trust their
neighbors in an emergency situation; to report higher levels of satisfaction and happiness;
to express positive feelings about how their community has changed over time; and to feel
optimistic about their community's ability to solve various problems as they arise. A word
of caution is in order when interpreting these results, however. Because of the cross-sec-
tional study design, it is not possible to show that resettlement
caused
the differences seen
in the data. Correlation, however, can be clearly seen, and there is reason to suspect that
these communities, having recently undergone some major socioeconomic shocks due to
resettlement, have found ways to adapt by bonding together and relying upon one another's
support.
What are the long-term implications of these trends for households living in the Lancang
basin and facing the environmental and social changes wrought by dam construction? The
answer to this question requires a basic grasp of the changing terrain of agrarian political
economy in postreform China. In the mid-1940s, the anthropologist Fei Xiaotong and his
student Zhang Zhiyi described the household-based system of economic production that
formed the backbone of Chinese society for millennia before the Communist Revolution:
“The household is the social and economic unit, holding property in common, living to-
gether in the same house except for temporary absences, and working under the system of
the division of labor to keep life going” (Fei and Zhang 1945:11).
When these words were published, Fei likely had little idea that the traditional system of
smallholder farming would soon be turned on its head. After the establishment of the PRC
