Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/45001 
Year of Publication: 
2010
Series/Report no.: 
Duisburg Working Papers on East Asian Studies No. 85/2010
Publisher: 
University of Duisburg-Essen, Institute of East Asian Studies (IN-EAST), Duisburg
Abstract: 
China has turned from a 'low risk' to a 'high risk' society since the start of the market reforms in the late 1970s. Market, while bringing diverse livelihood opportunities to rural people, has simultaneously distributed risks, and the exposure and vulnerability to them unequally among different social groups. This paper attempts to apply the risk concept to the study of one of the most socially disadvantaged groups in China, namely rural-urban migrants, through analysing the narratives of members of a migratory family of the Hui Muslim national minority from the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, who run a business in the northern city of Tianjin. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, the research adopts an actor-oriented perspective combined with qualitative longitudinal research methodology (or 'extended case method') to delineate a livelihood trajectory of this family, and explore the relationships between livelihood, risk, social networks, agency and public policy interventions.
Subjects: 
rural-urban migration
risk
contingency
uncertainty
livelihood
social networks
agency
social security
translocality
longitudinal research
narrative
extended case method
China
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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