Chinese discourses on rurality, gender and development: a feminist critique

During the 1980s and 1990s, peasants, especially peasant women, were mostly ignored in elite Chinese discourse on development, or portrayed as a 'backward', 'low quality' group, who put a drag on modernization. But since then, a number of elite discourses have emerged, which try to address the disadvantages suffered by the peasantry. In this paper I critique two of these recent discourses, relating to 'participatory development' and 'new rural reconstruction'. Drawing on Nancy Fraser's conceptualisation of 'injustice' and her analysis of 'affirmative' and 'transformative' strategies for overcoming it, I argue that these discourses make important, but limited, contributions to efforts to overcome injustice. The main focus of the paper is on new rural reconstruction discourse, because it promises a more radically transformative approach to injustice. However, advocates of new rural reconstruction elide gender inequalities in rural society. Far from being incidental, I argue, this elision is an integral component of an essentially affirmative approach, which reproduces injustice rather than providing the theoretical tools and language with which to address it. Comparing new rural reconstruction discourse with that of participatory development helps illuminate the limitations and strengths of each.