Abstract/Summary

From the 1980s, rural to urban migration has been increasing in China, with the number of rural to urban migrants reaching 295 million in 2022. From 2010, there has been an emerging trend of urban to rural returnee migration. Over half of rural returnees in China start micro and small enterprises after returning to origin communities. Returnee entrepreneurs brought back capital, skills and urbanized values accumulated during the migration process. As a part of rural communities, they influence and interact with rural transformation in economic, social and regulatory contexts. Nonetheless, there is limited research about urban to rural returnee entrepreneurs in China. Apart from existing focus on rural economic transformation, more knowledge is needed to understand rural transformation in social and regulatory contexts. This research aims to address the knowledge gaps by investigating interactions of rural returnee entrepreneurs with the process of hybrid rurality, as a way to analyse the Chinese rural transformation from the grass-root perspective. To achieve these aims, the research 1) examines factors promoting agency to return and agency for entrepreneurship among rural returnees in China; 2) explores the embedding process of rural returnee entrepreneurs, and 3) interrogates interactions between rural returnee entrepreneurs and the process of hybrid rurality in China. A case study approach using the Xiji town in Beijing municipality is adopted to conduct an in-depth analysis from diverse perspectives. Qualitative analysis of 54 semi-structured interviews and 5 key informant discussions were conducted with heterogenous groups. Combined with reviews of the secondary materials, this research reveals that heterogeneity of returnee entrepreneurs by age, gender and social networks, influences agency for entrepreneurship. There is higher agency for entrepreneurship among young returnees in 30s and 40s than older returnees in 50s. Likewise, gender variance is found on the agency for entrepreneurship among female and male returnees. While male returnees are found to return and run enterprises, female returnees are found more to return and fulfill family obligations. Agency for entrepreneurship among female returnees are more the means to increase income for better fulfilling family obligations. Moreover, the research finds that social networks of returnee entrepreneurs play significant roles in explaining business performance and maintaining agency for entrepreneurship, in terms of utilizing resources from rural contexts. The Chinese returnee entrepreneurs can keep their economic assets when being away from rural origins. The maintained economic space in origin communities facilitates agency for entrepreneurship among returnees and keep migrants embedded in rural contexts. Nonetheless, returnee entrepreneurs can be dis-embedded from rural economic and social contexts after returns, if their enterprise operations would not be successful. Both agency for entrepreneurship and embedding of returnee entrepreneurs are interlinked with the process of hybrid rurality, including the evolvement of hybrid contexts, relations and identities that reinforce each other. On the one hand, a hybrid economic context that entails emergence of non-agriculture sectors strengthen growth of returnee entrepreneurs and their agency for entrepreneurship. On the other hand, a hybrid social context featuring dominance of rural informal relations has limited returnee entrepreneurs’ access to resources, which can hinder their agency for entrepreneurship and dis-embed them from rural contexts. At the sa emergence of rural to urban returnee entrepreneurs me time of confronting contextual changes, returnee entrepreneurs can feedback and influence the process of hybrid rurality by facilitating diversification of economic contexts and growth of hybrid relations in rural social contexts. This research provides new empirical insights about rural transformation in China by investigating the process of hybrid rurality in economic, social and regulatory contexts from a grassroot perspective. It shows how rural community members, such as returnee entrepreneurs, can construct rural contexts even when experiencing challenges from contextual changes. The evidence of continued rurality in China, albeit in hybrid terms, highlights how rurality is being re-constructed rather than ending, and calls for targeted policy support towards demands of heterogenous rural community groups, instead of focusing only on supply-driven incentives that may benefit only a few.