Cody, Sacha
Description
Exemplary agriculture is a grassroots alternative food movement
in Shanghai, China and the surrounding countryside. At the
movement’s centre are a group of 13 independent and small-scale
organic farmers. This thesis outlines the movement’s formation
and functioning, and discusses participants’ motivations and
objectives. It also identifies relationships between movement
activists and intellectuals, rural residents, volunteers on the
farms and customers in the...[Show more] city.
Exemplary agriculture is different to other alternative food
movements because it is heavily influenced by the continuing
legacies of state socialism. Two legacies in particular affect
how exemplary agriculturalists think and act. The first is
exemplarity, a form of morality and social governance that
achieves order through leadership by example and the emulation of
role models. Exemplarity and the promotion of role models has
been a pillar of Chinese Communist Party policy since the 1940s.
The second is the differentiation of the urban and the rural. The
household registration system, established by the CCP in the
1950s, paved the way for the formation of powerful discourses of
urban/rural difference. These discourses polarise the city and
the countryside into discrete spaces and identities with clearly
demarcated boundaries, privileging the urban.
Exemplary agriculturalists worry about the health of Chinese
society and want to provide alternatives. By growing organic
produce in the countryside and selling to customers in the city,
they want to relieve Chinese urbanites from anxiety caused by
food safety concerns. At a deeper level, they want to influence
urban attitudes toward rural China and improve relations between
the two groups. Exemplary agriculturalists adopt principles
derived from rural culture and call on others to emulate them.
They encourage urban residents to apply these principles to their
own lives, thereby facilitating alternative and better ways of
city living. In short, they borrow from the rural to help the
urban.
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