Taobao practices, everyday life and emerging hybrid rurality in contemporary China

Over the past decade, e-commerce has spread throughout China, providing an economic advancement opportunity for those in the lower classes of society. Villages who specialise in e-commerce, such as the Taobao villages, are booming. Taobao villages constitute an exciting phenomenon that has changed both the pattern of the rural economy, as well as the social foundation of rural daily life. This paper explores how everyday life in rural China has changed in response to the development of the network economy. Using Junpu village in Guangdong Province as a case study, our findings suggest that the development of e-commerce and network technology has changed the common values held towards rural life, the affection felt for the village, and the pace of life of local people. This development has also led to social separation in rural China. However, the intrusion of this new force of network economy has been resisted by local cultural structures such as family, clans, religion, and gender dynamics, leading to an unprecedented hybrid rurality. While network development has brought about the influence of modernity, the Chaoshan tradition of Junpu village has persisted and continued to be a part of life in this new stage of social life. The social milieu in rural China has been reconstructed and blends the alienation brought on by the operation of a network economy with the resistance felt from the practice of local cultural traditions. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd, All rights reserved.