The Role of Endurance Contests in the Construction of Authority and Social Order in Rural China: Cases in the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China |
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| Authors: | Guohua Zheng |
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| Institution: | 1. College of Physical Education, Ningbo University, Ningbo, Chinazhengguohua@nbu.edu.cn |
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| Abstract: | By investigating four cases from the Qing Dynasty (1622–1911) and from the Republic of China (1911–1949), it was found that inter-village disputes normally arose because of uneven distribution of public resources in China's rural society. To settle the disputes, villagers tended to apply civil mediation, normally conducting endurance contests, rather than seek governmental arbitration. The authority and social order was thereby based on endurance contests. Conducting such contests was certainly advantageous to larger villages in their quest for more public resources. However, it simultaneously restricted their privatization of public resources, as the smaller villagers were able to equally raise their voices to resist them and to obtain their own public resources by proposing and participating in endurance contests. Although originally it was an unfair way of settling the disputes over uneven distribution of public resources in rural China, it gave hope to the disadvantaged to protect their own rights and interests at a time when governmental arbitration could not be relied upon. |
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| Keywords: | endurance contests rural Chinese society authority inter-village order |
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