Presentation short abstract

Grounded in ethnographic fieldwork and guided by an agroecological lens, this contribution explores neo-rural migration in Dali, Yunnan, focusing on how neo-rural farmers develop agroecological practices and reshape local socio-environmental relations.

Presentation long abstract

In a time of accelerating socio-ecological transformation, when the historical rural–urban dichotomy is increasingly inadequate for capturing emerging spatial and social configurations, and when the unsustainability of dominant agrifood regimes becomes ever more evident, neorurality is gaining significance as a site of counter-narratives, alternative possibilities and experimental practices. Motivated by disillusionment with urban life and by aspirations to rebuild relationships with nature, land and food self-provisioning, China’s neo-rural migrants challenge linear models of development that cast “rural” and “urban” as oppositional stages. Instead, they actively remake socio-natural relations through syncretic and ecologically attuned agricultural practices enacted as part of their ongoing processes of “repeasantization”, bringing with them diverse forms of cultural capital, professional expertise and urban-derived resources that contribute to reshaping local agrarian landscapes.

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in the Dali area of Yunnan Province and complemented by digital ethnography, this contribution has a twofold aim. First, it examines the socio-ecological dynamics generated by emergent forms of ecological agriculture through a holistic framework that integrates environmental and social dimensions of sustainability, showing how neo-rural practices both respond to and reshape local ecologies, agrarian livelihoods and value systems. Second, it explores how the “agroecological paradigm” is enacted within the Chinese context, highlighting the multiple factors that shape the emergence and understanding of this paradigm in the contemporary national setting.