RETURN MIGRATION AND EDUCATIONAL CAPITAL: REDEFINING CLASS AND AUTHORITY IN YUNNAN'S COFFEE PLANTATIONS, CHINA

Heyi Xie

Todos os Trabalhos

Trabalho

DOI

10.29327/9786527226680.1442660

Título do Trabalho

RETURN MIGRATION AND EDUCATIONAL CAPITAL: REDEFINING CLASS AND AUTHORITY IN YUNNAN'S COFFEE PLANTATIONS, CHINA

Autores

Heyi Xie

Modalidade

IRSA - Congresso Mundial de Sociologia Rural (01/10/2025 a 20/01/2026)

Área temática

IRSA 15 - Beyond urban and rural sociology: towards a spatialised and circulatory analysis of social structure

Data de Publicação

06/08/2026

País da Publicação

Brasil

Idioma da Publicação

pt-BR

Página do Trabalho

https://www.even3.com.br/anais/sober-irsa2026/1442660-return-migration-and-educational-capital--redefining-class-and-authority-in-yunnans-coffee-plantations-china

ISBN

978-65-272-2668-0

Palavras-Chave

Rural social morphology, Return migration, Educational capital, Class re-stratification, Specialty coffee

Resumo

This paper explores the class re-stratification in Yunnan’s coffee-growing villages, China. Based on 7 months of participant observation and 26 in-depth interviews, this research analyzes how university-educated return migrants are transforming agricultural production and changing who holds power in rural development. This study explains that these migrants return due to a mix of urban involution, a situation of intense competition with diminishing returns; and state policies promoting agricultural transformation, which create new opportunities in the countryside. What distinguishes returnees from traditional farmers is reflexivity acquired through higher education, this capacity allows them to question circumstances, imagine alternatives, and navigate competing institutional logics. This unique background allows returnees to build authority in three specific ways. First, they redefine quality standards by framing local coffee characteristics not as defects, but as expressions of terroir, making themselves the experts on "good" farming. Second, they act as institutional intermediaries, translating complex state development programs into local farming practices, which gives them control over government resources. Third, their ability to speak multiple "languages", switching fluently between global market discourse, state policy language, and local community terms, allows them to represent their villages to the outside world and explain external demands to their community. This research found that this class differentiation happens through different frameworks of legitimacy. While traditional farmers rely on kinship and connections to access resources, returnees emphasize institutional efficiency and market competitiveness. As a result, the returnees' ontologies—their specific ways of viewing the world—are increasingly determining how actual resources are distributed, as their methods align better with state and market requirements. This case demonstrates how educational access produces new rural class positions based on interpretive power and institutional proximity rather than land ownership alone, highlighting the spatial circulation of knowledge and authority between urban universities and rural communities in contemporary China's social morphology.

Título do Evento: 16th World Congress of Rural Sociology and 64th Congress of the Brazilian Society of Rural Economics, Management and Sociology
Cidade do Evento: Porto Alegre
Título dos Anais do Evento: Anais do 64º Congresso da SOBER e XVI Congresso Mundial de Sociologia Rural (IRSA)
Nome da Editora: Even3
Meio de Divulgação: Meio Digital
DOI

Como citar

XIE, Heyi. RETURN MIGRATION AND EDUCATIONAL CAPITAL: REDEFINING CLASS AND AUTHORITY IN YUNNAN'S COFFEE PLANTATIONS, CHINA.. In: Anais do 64º Congresso da SOBER e XVI Congresso Mundial de Sociologia Rural (IRSA). Anais...Porto Alegre(RS) UFRGS, 2026. Disponível em: https//www.even3.com.br/anais/sober-irsa2026/1442660-RETURN-MIGRATION-AND-EDUCATIONAL-CAPITAL--REDEFINING-CLASS-AND-AUTHORITY-IN-YUNNANS-COFFEE-PLANTATIONS-CHINA. Acesso em: 24/09/2026