Paper short abstract:

On the background of various historical state formations, this paper offers an ethnographic exploration into the ways land is measured, valorised, and appropriated in contemporary rural China.

Paper long abstract:

In contemporary rural China, farmers are attributing relatively little spiritual or ancestral value to land, but instead land is valorised primarily in economic terms. Land is measured by rule of thumb, social agreement, and mutual control within local communities, and by mapping, census, and statistics within the state bureaucracy. Plots of land are valued according to different and partly contradictory frameworks, like the market, government ideology, and a sense of belonging to a family or a community. These different forms of measuring and valorising of land are fundamental building blocks of local political economies and cultural state formations.

In this paper, I give a historical overview of various state formations since the beginning of the 20th century in Western Hubei province, with a focus on the measuring, distribution, and ownership of land. On the background of this history, I deal with the examples of land disputes amongst neighbours and relatives, and of the appropriation of land by local government for development programmes in Xintang township of Western Hubei Province in 2007, to explore the different forms in which value is attributed to land in rural China.