Who Owns the Rural Space? The Social Contradictions Between Immigrant Entrepreneurs and Native Individuals Under China’s Rural Revitalization

Wei Meng, Hengyu Wang and Shengcong Wang ()
Additional contact information
Wei Meng: Department of Public Security Administration, Jiangsu Police Institute, Nanjing 210031, China
Hengyu Wang: Siauliai Academy, Vilnius University, 76351 Siauliai, Lithuania
Shengcong Wang: School of Government, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, China

Land, 2025, vol. 14, issue 2, 1-19

Abstract: China’s rural revitalization strategy has led to the emergence of a new group of immigrant entrepreneurs. As they manage industries in villages, social contradictions with the native individuals inevitably arise. To reveal the social contradictions between immigrant entrepreneurs and native individuals, this study constructs a framework based on social conflict theory and employs a qualitative approach combining methods such as participative observation and unstructured interviews with immigrant entrepreneurs, native individuals, and village officials in Xian Village. Key findings reveal the following: (1) Disparities in lifestyle, entertainment methods, and commercial interests are the main factors contributing to the social contradictions. (2) The presentation of contradictions is summarized in three forms: the segregation of production space, the emergence of interest groups, and the outbreak of intermittent conflicts. (3) Although these contradictions seem to be part of everyday life and self-regulating, with the favoritism of local governments, the power network of the village is further eroded by immigrant entrepreneurs, and native individuals are faced with the risk of being marginalized, which seems to be a tricky phenomenon in the process of rural revitalization. These findings summarize the causes and localized presentation forms of social contradictions, enhance the applicability of social conflict theory, and supplement valuable cases from developing countries.

Keywords: rural revitalization; rural space; native individual; immigrant entrepreneur; social contradiction; security (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/14/2/420/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/14/2/420/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlands:v:14:y:2025:i:2:p:420-:d:1593270

Access Statistics for this article

Land is currently edited by Ms. Carol Ma

More articles in Land from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().