Understanding “left-behind children” in rural China : an ethnographic approach

Abstract

This study aims to provide a comprehensive and nuanced picture of how rural left-behind children (nong cun liu shou er tong) view their living experiences as well as themselves. The fieldwork is conducted in a rural middle school in China's central province Henan, with the ethnographic data being obtained from multiple methods with 14 child participants. The idea of "de-centred subject" is deployed to illuminate that child participants generally do not take the socially prescribed categories to read themselves but instead, they can sustain their own identities in ways that are diversified and fluid. Post-structuralism concepts (e.g., "deconstruction" and "disciplinary power") are adopted to examine the multifaceted reality confronted by left-behind children, while the new sociology of childhood is used to explore children's agency in negotiation with powers in actual space and discursive contexts. In particular, this study examines how rural left-behind children interact with school, school adults, peers, migrant parents, and the communities they lived and live in from a child-centred perspective. It turns out to be that the children I met can break or blur the boundaries that adult societies need to be set to manage their lives and retreat from the norms and discursive practices that attempt to fix their identities. The research findings challenge left-behind children's vulnerable and victim image which often circulates in public discourse. Meanwhile, the narrative delivered by children themselves problematizes the term "rural left-behind children" per se. Living in an intensified changing society, factors like uncertainty, instability, and complexity have become very normal in these children's growth and therefore cannot be swept away by the mainstream socialization projects that seek ordering and exclude inconsistency. Thus, this study appeals to adult society to acknowledge these factors and try to incorporate children's voices in understanding their living situations. By presenting children's agency in actual spaces and discursive contexts, this study also contributes to the current theoretical debates on childhood studies.