The changing life-world of a Chinese village: Land, economic practice, and community change

Abstract

Research into traditional Chinese society engages Chinese villages as a legitimate field for investigation. By looking into the life-world of Da Shu, a village in the New Territories of Hong Kong SAR, this article challenges a research approach that views the Chinese village as a temporal other to the contemporary world. This article demonstrates how the life-world of a Chinese village interplays with the changing historical context. The study examines the economic life that revolves around land and the overall community practices at different times. The study suggests that the life-world of this Chinese village is a historical congeries that involves varying interplays of people with varying dominant rules of times. The subjectivity of people on the ground is always imbued with remarkable historical voices and practices.