Rural sociology: Chinese and western theoretical traditions

The paper analyzes the Chinese and Western theoretical traditions in the studies on rural sociology. The emphasis is placed on the approaches of Chinese and Western sociologists to examining the problems of a village in the era of urbanization. A comprehensive sociological analysis of the rural economic development remains a major development challenge for social sciences, particularly for the sociology of China. This analysis implies both a review of theoretical studies on the village in Western social sciences and the creation of a Chinese-adapted concept of economic and social research into the complex social adaptation of modern Chinese village to the global economic processes. It is difficult for Chinese rural sociologists to develop this branch of the sociology and create opportunities for acquiring new knowledge on urgent, acute, complex social and economic and demographic problems of the modern Chinese village without such a theoretical integration. The aforementioned Western theoretical approaches may well become the basis for the modern rural sociology in China because, since the early 20th century, Chinese researchers have been striving to escape from forced empiricism and rise to the high scientific and theoretical level of understanding the transformation of the Chinese peasantry.