Editorial – Negotiating Agrarian Futures in China: Capital, Collectives, and Communities

From Peasant to Elite: Reshaping Agriculture in Gansu Province

ABSTRACT: This article contributes to the growing body of research on the role of the Party-state in shaping an emerging post-peasant modernity in rural China, taking developments in Gansu Province as a case. The article first analyses how a political preference for an agrarian elite has been put into recent policies and translates into rural practices. It argues that the “new-type agricultural management subjects,” (which form the core of this elite, should also be considered as a policy instrument designed to promote structural change in Chinese agriculture. This article proceeds to explore the capacity of the new agrarian elite as local development agents in Gansu Province. It focuses in particular on the legitimation of this instrument and its consequences for the structure of agriculture.

KEYWORDS: peasants, elite, smallholding, policy instruments, agrarian change, displacement, Gansu Province.