POST-DISASTER SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION IN WENGDING: INSTITUTIONAL PROCESSES AND EVERYDAY PRACTICES IN A WA VILLAGE OF SOUTHWEST CHINA
Keywords:
Wengding, Post-disaster social reconstruction, Institutional processes, Everyday practices, Spatial reorganizationAbstract
Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, follow-up interviews, and documentary records, this article investigates how the inhabitants of Wengding, a Wa settlement in southwest China, have pieced collective life back together in the aftermath of a devastating fire, against the backdrop of tourism growth and resettlement. The old village and the new settlement now perform distinct functions, and this division has reshaped the ways in which social bonds are maintained. Through adjustments to the home and through ritual gift exchange, residents keep family and kin connections alive; through tourism employment and daily travel they preserve their attachment to the old village; and through communal rituals and negotiations over land they reconstitute collective affairs. Each of these practices rests on particular conditions—housing, access to work, and institutional arrangements that permit coordinated action. I describe the outcome as conditional continuity: relationships endure through practical adaptation, yet the form and depth of that endurance hinge on resources, rights, and coordination. Reunited residence and shared activities open space for repairing damaged ties, although their longer-run consequences require further study. It is equally important to separate the chance to take part from the capacity to shape the rules that govern participation. The Wengding case indicates that post-disaster social reconstruction should be evaluated in terms of the conditions that hold relationships together and the extent to which residents can help shape collective life.References
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