Maoqin Luo, Na Zhao, Jie Wang
 
1.Academy of the Zhonghuaminzu Community, Dalian Minzu University, Dalian 116605, Liaoning, People’s Republic of China
2.School of Ethnology and History, Guizhou Minzu University, Guiyang 550025, Guizhou, People’s Republic of China
3.School of History, Xinjiang University, Urumchi 830046, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region People’s Republic of China
 
 
Abstract:In the context of Chinese urban-rural integration, the social capital reconstruction of returning ethnic migrant workers - the previous absentee of rural society in central and western regions for a time - is a necessary element to realize their social reintegration. The social capital of Guizhou ethnic returning rural migrant workers can be divided into village social and new social capital. According to the data of the three cities in Guizhou province (Guiyang, Tongren, Liupanshui), from the horizontal level, it finds that ethnic returning migrant workers’ social capital is mainly provided by the village social capital in the desire to obtain social capital, and initiative is relatively superior. From the longitudinal level, it finds that they actively practice social capital reconstruction after returning to their home villages. There is still room for improvement in the application and acquisition of new social capital. Structural constraints such as resource platforms and institutional norms at the social structure level, collective action dilemma such as the village domain reliance, capital cognition at the individual level are the main influencing factors. It is necessary to promote the social capital reconstruction of rural residents through the reasonable planning of the village industrial structure, and improve the capital cognition level of ethnic minority migrant workers at multiple levels.
Keywords: Ethnic returning migrant workers; Social capital; Social reintegration; Guizhou province

 

1 Introduction

There are clear indications that rural population of Guizhou province flows to the cities with the urban development. Among the separate population in the province, the number of people flowing to cities, towns and villages was 6.1793 million, 3.8498 million and 1.6656 million, accounting for 52.84%, 32.92% and 14.24%, respectively.^[1] It can be seen that the migration from rural areas to urban ones is still the main pattern of the floating population in Guizhou. Studies have shown that the outward flow of population is often accompanied by a certain degree of backflow, i.e., the large migration of rural population is not only from the farmers, but also from the returning migrant workers into the city.^[2] Statistics according to the Department of Human Resources and Social Security of Guizhou Province shows that by 2020, Guizhou province has called on 2.9418 million migrant workers to return to their hometowns to start businesses and create job possibilities, completing 196.12% of the target tasks, all departments at all levels in the province have completed 3.5273 million rural labor training, and 195.96% of the 1.8 million target tasks.^[3] This new change plays a more direct role in promoting the development of rural agriculture.
  “Problem of rural migrant workers” is one of the most concerned issues relating to agriculture, rural areas, and rural people in China. At present, the academic circles answered the following questions for the returning ethnic rural migrant workers: First, no sense of belonging in other places, high living costs in the cities, cultural conflicts and inadaptation of city life force the ethnic migrant workers to return to their hometown. Second, the individual factors, such as, the age, health condition and skill levels may affect their employment, and the level of education, language and other factors may affect their social integration degree. Third, the linkage of rural family relations and the change of the hometown environment have a powerful magnetizing effect on them to return home. Besides, current favorable policies attract returnees to start businesses. 
    Based on the fieldwork in Tongren, Liupanshui, Guiyang cities, Guizhou province, this article tries to discuss the current social capital reconstruction practice of returned ethnic migrant workers, analyzes the influencing factors of social capital reconstruction and puts forward relevant promotion countermeasures.

2 The Practice of Social Capital Reconstruction of the Returning Ethnic Rural Migrant Workers in Guizhou

The process of social capital by the application practice of actors is the process of social capital reconstruction. To explore their practice of social capital reconstruction, it is necessary to divide the types of social capital available for migrant workers in rural areas. Here, the main types and characteristics of ethnic rural migrant workers should be distinguished and explored. The article divides the returning ethnic rural migrant workers into two categories—elite talents and “amphibious farmers”. From the perspective of individual actors, based on the social relations network, the social capital types closely related to the social capital reconstruction practice of returning ethnic migrant workers can be divided into village social and new social capital. Village social capital is the collectively social capital that determines the income of the whole village. It consists of village network, village trust and village recognition, among which the village network includes the formal and informal one. The former is the one based on the village cooperative organizations of professional farmer cooperatives, self-organizations, social service organizations and other organizations, the latter refers to the villagers’ social network on “three yuan”（三缘）in daily life, including the weddings and funerals, family activities and other networks. New social capital refers to the social capital accumulated in the city with universal trust, contract norms and extensively social relationship network as the main content. This paper shows the practice of social capital reconstruction from the horizontal and vertical levels: the horizontal level mainly discusses the social capital access channels and the stock of social capital; the longitudinal level mainly discusses how to use the people return to adapt to the existing social capital stock to rebuild and play a role.
2.1 Horizontal level: the division of ethnic minority migrant workers and social capital stock
2.1.1 Rural elites: heterogeneous and diverse
  Rural elites have accumulated a lot of fortune in the intra-provincial and inter-provincial population mobility for many years. They are the people who have mastered a unique skill and built strong social networks. In order to spend more time with the family, or repay their parents, they choose to go back to the home village, use the preferential policies of hometown employment and build up a business. However, the elite talents are the minority compared with the other home-going groups. Urban life and work experience have deepened their understandings of the modern industrial development mode and the change of the city consumer demand structure. After returning to their hometown, they mostly join the village governance elite team or are engaged in non-agricultural operation work, mainly with agricultural operation and development production, injecting human capital and other elements into the non-agricultural industry in their hometown.
The rural elites are respected by the locals and enjoy remarkable structural advantages. The theory of social capital suggested that the canonical interaction patterns of the actors with relatively high initial positions in the social structure would link the people with its similar or higher positions. Those actors who have advanced positions and occupy good positions will also have the opportunity to access and use social relationships with good resources. Rural elites can effectively mobilize villagers through their chrisma, their diverse identities and better class position also indicate a strong network of resources. Rural elites have made achievements as migrant workers, which has not made them form a “alienated” social association with the villages.^[4] They return to the village periodically, the reciprocal relationship, participation in public affairs and other interactions still make its own certain networking market based on geography, kinship and blood relationship. In addition, rural elites have better social capital and human capital than ordinary rural members. With these advantages, they can build a wide social network circle in the process of urban integration, use their own endowment and ability to obtain multiple heterogeneous resources from social relations, and have multiple career choices and network accumulation.
Case 1: I had always been working with my boss before, there were no money problems concerning three children’s tuition, the elderly’s support and the daily living expenses. Because I worked as an assistant general manager in the group at that time, I could earn a basic salary of more than 8,000 yuan a month, and almost more than 10,000 yuan plus a bonus a month. My father was a village head, when I came back to the village, our party secretary asked me to be the village head. You know, some things can not be bought by money, you win some, you lose some. If we work outside for a long time, money is not a problem, but my children may not be able to enjoy these benefits, like parents timely care and company. At the meantime, coming back gives me more opportunities to take care of my children and the elderly, which frees me from worrying now. I can not take care of my children and my parents, and now I have no such worries now. (Male, Miao people)
From the interview, we find that it’s easier for the rural talents to achieve high-quality employment in the urban labor market. On the other side, their social exchanges are mostly based on the people with different backgrounds, and it is easier to form a bridging social relationship network based on universal trust. According to the theory of weak ties’ advantages, new information is easier to pass to others through weak ties’ advantages and obtain more opportunities for scarce resources. Therefore, the social capital stock includes the new social capital accumulated in the city as well as the social capital in the village after the rural talents returned home.
2.1.2  “Amphibious farmers”: heterogeneous and bidirectional
 “Amphibious farmers” refer to the groups who serve their obtained capital for rural life by means of temporary migrant work. According to the periodic and seasonal arrangement of agricultural production, these groups choose to work in the nearest cities, towns and the provincial capitals in the slack season. Because the income is not enough to maintain the decent life of amphibious farmers in the city, they choose to live in the countryside while working in the cities so that they can maintain the relationship with children and take care of the elderly at the same time.
 Moving between urban and rural areas is the norm for amphibious farmers. Due to household registration restrictions between urban and rural areas, limited formal sector jobs and skills mismatch, most amphibious farmers engage in informal employment, such as physical labor or low-end services. They also have to face the risk of losing jobs when the temporary working period ends or there’re economic and social fluctuations. In order to be employed, amphibious farmers usually maintain contact with urban acquaintances and employers. When unemployed, they usually seek for employment information and employment opportunities in the social network.
Case 2: My boss and I have the mutual trust. There’s no contract between us, we work for him when he gives us the job. If he doesn’t have the contracted work, we go back to our hometown when the job is done. I had a Sichuan boss before, we all knew each other. I tended to work for him all the way because he was worthy of my trust, and he also trusted my capabilities. In this way, we believe that he can pay us on time if we complete the tasks well. So, we really like this job pattern - get paid and be free from the fixed schedule. We are free to work and go home as we want. (Male, Yi people)
In interviews with most amphibious farmers, we learned that through the introduction of the bosses or relatives or acquaintances, solving daily affairs is an important social network for their life in the city. In addition, the frequent commutes between the rural areas and cities make amphibious farmers maintain their familiar village social network in rural areas. Therefore, the social capital stock of amphibious farmers is manifested as the village social capital and the new social capital in cities, but it is difficult for the new social capital to realize the value of social resources.
In general, the social capital stock of ethnic minority migrant workers is mainly based on the village social capital, which means that the scarce resources available after returning home are mainly provided by the village social capital, while it is difficult for amphibious farmers to apply the new social capital to the rural life.
2.2 Longitudinal level: the practice of social capital reconstruction for returning ethnic rural migrant workers
The key to the reconstruction of social capital of ethnic rural migrant workers lies in whether they can use social capital to obtain scarce resources and realize the value-added of social capital through active actions. As stated earlier, the formal village network is formed by village cooperation organizations, such as farmers’ professional co-operatives, self-organization, socialized service organizations. Apart from that, it also injects social elements in previous informal village network, forming the government, society and market of network interaction, which offers a new carrier for the returnees’ social capital to reconstruct.
2.2.1 Formal village network: the livelihood resources field for the returning ethnic rural migrant workers
    In view of that the Chinese traditional agricultural production mode mainly characterized by self-sufficiency, the primary purpose of agricultural production is about surviving. Farmers’ production decisions mainly follow the “safety principle”, rather than the “income maximization” principle. According to the diminishing law of absolute risk aversion, with the increase of people’s income, their risk aversion tendency begins to weaken, and they are willing to bear greater risks. The struggle in the city has modernised the ethnic rural migrant workers and broaden their horizen. The survey found that amphibious farmers have begun to obtain scarce resources from the formal village network. Through the government guiding economic behavior, they have obtained development opportunities, and their agricultural production capacity has been improved a lot. Participating in the village collective economy, understanding the industrial development support policies, learning agricultural technology, and obtaining information about job opportunities are the main forms of obtaining social capital in the formal village network. In the interview, an individual cattle farmer said:
Case 3: I invest in my own cattle raising business, and I also work outside. My parents are very old, and I am the only child in the family, so I have to go home to take care of the elderly, Although the cost of raising cattle here is high,the profit is still promising. We learn how to vaccinate the livestock in the epidemic prevention station, as to the trade of the cattle, we completely rely on our own eyes and experience. We are already know how to buy cattle and sell cattle, we are not taught by the professionals. We completely rely on our own vision and experience.(Male, Tujia people)
   In general, the returning ethnic rural migrant workers increased their agricultural income mainly through the formal village network livelihood capital. Although the rural elites to a certain extent play the role of new social capital, it is not enough for the village to achieve sustainable income, and the “predatory” development of external capital ignores the overall embedding of the village structure.
2.2.2 Informal village network: a resource mutual aid field for returning ethnic rural migrant workers
   In the process of long historical evolution, Chinese agrarian tradition has built up a set of strict ethics, emphasizing the importance of family and village. The rural family and kinship attach great importance to this unique tradition, namely, kinship, geographical relationship serve as a core social capital. Existing studies have found that in the process of transformation from traditional society to the modern society, although the “rural type” social capital is dissolved in an individual senses and no longer significant in the overall organizational characteristics, it still maintains the basic function of the grass-roots social body in terms of action ability.^[5] The ethnic minority settlements and karst landform in Guizhou determine that the ethnic groups in this area mainly settle in the form of “zhaiyzi” （寨子）and “Bazi”（坝子）Furthermore, the characteristics of geographical space helps to form the single surname clan social structure and then makes it easier to maintain a stable social network for ethnic migrant workers in rural areas.
It’s quite important for the ethnic rural migrant workers to maintain the “guanxi” after they are back to the village, such as attending the weddings and funerals, and helping each other. It is understood that in terms of homestead construction, parergon financing and expanded production, in order to save transaction costs, reduce negotiation costs and risks by mutual support, it is a rational choice for ethnic migrant workers to obtain funds through informal village network relations. In addition, the rural elites have once again integrated the well-known people into the village network, realizing the extension of the informal village social capital.
In other villages, there have also been some measures to obtain economic support from celebrities away from hometown through the establishment of public welfare organizations, but accounting for relatively few. Therefore, based on the special trust of informal village social relations, the rural elites connect the relationship within and outside of the village, and form the non-profit collective in a self-organized way, and earn good reputation through the public award ceremony in the village. Indeed, we have learned that the funded college students will participate in the construction of the village after returning home, and the elite people who go out will also take the initiative to donate money to the village, realizing the appreciation of social capital. In general, the informal village network is a field for mountain people to provide mutual assistance in resources and realize mutual care in living difficulties.
3 Impact factors of social capital rebuilding
    The practice of social capital reconstruction of returning ethnic rural migrant workers in Guizhou presents the process of village social capital and new social capital to obtain returns in their actions. But heterogenous interactions can provide useful social capital, and access to additional or better resources requires direct or indirect interaction with actors in other (better) locations, thus potentially more, better social capital. It is particularly important to expand the new type of heterogeneous social capital of ethnic minorities to improve the stock and quality of their social capital. According to the mentioned above, they show more dependence on the village social capital in the practice of social capital reconstruction, which does not help them in agricultural production, entrepreneurial financing, livelihood, quality of life and other aspects, but it also reflects the relative lack of application of new social capital. Some scholars believe that both NGO (non-governmental organizations) and government departments can only play a guiding and helpful role in the construction of social capital, and farmers should quickly play a main role with the help of these external forces. It is conducive to obtaining scarce resources and improving the stock and quality of social capital by expanding the heterogeneous social network. Therefore, it is worth thinking about the factors affecting its social capital reconstruction.
3.1 Structural constraints: the rebuilding environment of social capital
3.1.1Resource platform
Social capital is the resource embedded in the social structure. The mountainous terrain in Guizhou is undulating and changeable with flat arable land accounting for only 3% of the total land area. Due to the harsh natural and geographical conditions, the amount of arable land can only allow farming for their existence, and the contradiction between people and land remains a problem. From 2014 to 2020, Guizhou rural labor transfer continues to expand, and economic growth needs a lot of labor elements, The subject absent for a long time and insufficient resource allocation make the village social structure lack of liquidity, which leads to the lack of strong market support with the development of rural industry in Guizhou. As mentioned above, the cooperative organizations participating in the formal village network are the field for the people to obtain livelihood resources after returning home, and the industrial prosperity is the premise of solving all the problems in rural areas. He Xuefeng believes that the market for the integration of the three industries is not large, with only 5% of the rural integration getting profits from it. From the survey area, the rural areas with geographical advantages or tourism resources account for relatively small percentage, and they are in a negative position in the market with little capital to invest in. Granovetter believes that individual economic behavior is not isolated, but is actually connected with other economic and institutional structures in the specific social and economic structures.^[6] However, the scarce industrial investment in the village network makes the structure and relationship vulnerable among the participants in the village, leading to the unreasonable social capital stock. When migrants came home, the quantity and quality of the new social capital accessible to them were admittedly low, which made it impossible to obtain richer and more effective social capital in the heterogeneous interaction. From this point of view, the excessive investment of returning ethnic migrant workers in the traditional social capital is not entirely a self-choice behavior but a passive result of the structural constraints of the village society.
3.1.2 System norms
   System is the game rule in the society, which is a reciprocity or binding mechanism on the basis of universal social trust and extensive social participation. It is encouraging, guiding and restraining for the social members, provides the principle of organizational action and interaction and maintains the identity of individual and collective. When organizations are in the same set of institutions, they are in an institutional field. In the system field, the actors recognize, reflect and share the ritual and behavior, and receive the constraints and incentives imposed by the social system. Trust and participation between the actors or the collective belong to subjective and arbitrary. Therefore, it requires the construction of social norms with universal binding force in order to consolidate and enhance social trust and participation network.
    Normalization is the key to reduce transaction costs, and the lack of norms makes the earnings and returns of village cooperative organizations suffer from a high degree of complexity and uncertainty. On the one hand, the lack of reciprocity norms leads to the resistance of the village subject to the external capital, which is naturally not conducive to the operation and management activities of the external capital in the village, and it is difficult to effectively form a joint force of mutual benefit and win-win results. The main performances are as follows: the imperfect damage compensation mechanism of village cooperative organizations makes the lack of protection for the rights and interests of participants, increasing the risk of participation of amphibious farmers in investment, leading to the lack of subject participation. On the other hand, the lack of restrictive social norms makes the responsibility of cooperative organizations in the formal village network unable to be effectively implemented. Cooperative organization leaders and enterprises maximize their self-interests at the expense of organizational members, causing harm to the village subjects. From this point of view, due to the lack of formal market system and legal system in the new social capital to regulate the behavior of various subjects in the village, the active role of village social capital is unreasonable, and it is uncertain and instable for the formal village network livelihood capital return obtained by returning ethnic migrant workers.
3.2 Collective action dilemma: the consciousness and ability of social capital rebuilding
3.2.1 Village trust
  A community is based on mutual trust. Without trust, a community cannot spontaneously be formed ^[7] . With the acceleration of urbanization, the traditional rural social pattern is constantly challenged from the modern society. Due to the extension of the political and economic system to the grass-roots society and the enhancement of the rural population mobility, it poses great challenges to the rural social organizations embedded in the traditional society. In many specific affairs, the role and influence mode of social capital of informal village network change from directly to indirectly, and from the front to the back, and the social capital of formal village network begins to play an undeniably important role. Generally speaking, informal village network is relatively closed and homogeneity, its trust is both a personal and a kind of acquaintance one. While, modern relationship networks are open, heterogeneous, inclusive and a universal trust with impersonal characteristics, that is, the trust is based on the contract without considering the personal characteristics. It can be said that the reciprocal norms in modern relational networks are more equivalent and instantaneous than those in traditional relational networks. However, in fact, under the structural constraints, the imbalance of reciprocity and fruitless returns affect the trust relationship between amphibious farmers and the formal village network, seriously limiting the extensive cooperation between the two sides.
Case 4: Because there were a lot of lessons of failure, they were afraid of losses, so it is really difficult to have them invest in business. If there are dozens, hundreds of households in a village, you ask for each household to take out ten thousand yuan to invest in the business, they are afraid of business failure if the hard-earned money is lost, they are all done for, Unless those dealings have immediate benefits or cash business, people may have a little enthusiasm. or the villagers have no interest in doing that.(Male, Dong people)
They can not establish their social trust in the village cooperative organization due to the unpredictable earnings and returns, in this case, it can neither organize the people effectively nor represent and protect their rights and interests well.
3.2.2 Capital cognition
   The lack of cognition of social capital stems from the human and cultural constraints of ethnic migrant workers themselves, which has become an obstacle to obtain resource information, and makes it lack the ability to obtain and use the new social capital. Information network is a kind of social capital that exists within social relations. Information is very important in providing the foundation for action. The use of existing social relations is an important means to obtain information.^[8] The role of information acquisition is to connect the supply and demand parties so that the village subjects participating in the cooperative organizations can complete the supply and demand information and reach transactions quickly, which promotes the rural industries to adjust their own production structure according to the market changes. The research shows that effective information acquisition channels can reduce the cost of information scanning, improve the efficiency of agricultural product supply chain, and make farmers obtain the optimal market decisions.^[9] According to the survey, there are all kinds of network support policy, social service information and so on in the village, elite migrant workers can effectively use a variety of high-technology tools and techniques. However, most of returning migrant workers have to be guided by the local governments because they are unable to actively use the information service to change and arrange agricultural production. Their lack of knowledge about the benefits of large-scale production, agricultural policies, and financing and lending makes the information resources less available to them, which hinders the village industry scale development and entrepreneurial financing.
Social capital is not only the result of intentional action, but also a by-product of economic activities and social activities. While improving their own conditions, farmers also accumulate social capital, but the erosion of social capital is much easier than construction. A defeat may destroy the social capital accumulated for several years, or even decades.^[10] If the returning ethnic migrant workers do not have a long-term view with a positive and open attitude, participate in the village public affairs decision-making and collective public welfare undertakings, they cannot establish a heterogeneous interactive network and obtain information beneficial to themselves.
4. Conclusion: Social capital reconstruction and promotion strategy
The accumulation of social capital of ethnic migrant workers in cities is only a tool for the smooth realization of urban integration, rather than the ultimate pursuit of production and development in the city. From the individual level, the stock of social capital after returning to his hometown is mainly the village social capital, and the enthusiasm of the village network participation is relatively good, and the desire to obtain the village network resources is high. In terms of village social structure level, village social capital provides a certain stage for reconstruction of livelihood mode of ethnic migrant workers, but structural constraints make its social capital reconstruction practice ineffective docking with new social capital, and the instable returns affect the ethnic migrant workers' trust of external social capital so that they fell into a collective action dilemma, thus, passively incorporating them into the formal village network hinders the activation of village collectives, the development and expansion of village economic structure.
The reconstruction of social capital plays an important role in promoting the reintegration of the village society where ethnic migrant workers return to their hometowns. In essence, the process of social capital reconstruction is that of investing in the social capital in the village and obtaining the return of new development resources under the premise of being familiar with the village development culture. Social capital reconstruction can not only provide support for their survival and development in the village network, but also help them maintain their existing relations, and even develop a wider social network and obtain richly new social resources, and promote their recognition, adaptation and reintegration of the village society as well. Ethnic migrant workers continue and expand the application of the social capital during the urban work and life, including the application and strengthening of the strong relations with the existing traditional social network when they first enter the city using the new social capital accumulated in the city to realize the expansion and appreciation of the social capital in their hometown. According to the ethnic migrant workers return types, amphibious farmers due to the lack of human capital and cultural capital, it is difficult for them to use new social capital in the village when they are back home, so, we should strengthen the socialization service and timely help for this group, including providing market information, agricultural materials supply, agricultural products marketing, production assistance, professional training, etc.
In addition, it is the basis for exerting its subjectivity in the realization of sharing and symbiosis, the benefit distribution of mutual assistance and win-win and integrated development in the contractual relationship between service subjects and cooperative organizations, and forming a community of resource sharing, risk sharing and benefit sharing. For elite talents, whether they can provide multi-resource form and the stage to realize the appreciation of collective assets within the village is the key to gather the main body of the village and realize collective action.
 
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