The Impact of the Anti-Poverty Relocation and Settlement Program on Farmers’ Livelihood: Perspective of Livelihood Space

Abstract

To better promote the new anti-poverty strategy and serve as a reference for poverty alleviation in other developing countries and regions, this paper discussed the impact of the anti-poverty relocation and settlement program (ARSP) on the livelihood of farmers from the perspective of livelihood space. Existing research focuses on quantitative research on the relationship between relocation and livelihood, but lacks a perspective that combines livelihood and space. In this study, Nanshan village was selected as the research area, using the semi-structured interview and the semi-participatory observation methods to obtain the original materials, and the snowball sampling method was used to determine the interviewees. This study found that the ARSP has a more significant effect on the expansion of production space of young people and farmers with high household savings; meanwhile, by changing the traditional folk house layout, the non-agricultural resettlement mode also forces farmers to adapt to urbanized living, which is a slow process. Affected by factors such as housing segregation and cultural elements, farmers’ social interactions show the characteristics of self-isolation in the short term. However, the evidence shows that this trend is declining; after the relocation, the village was incorporated into the community jurisdiction. Similar to urban–rural interfaces, with the transformation from rural to urban, it is difficult for the normalizing management mode and service supply capacity of communities to meet the growing demand for urbanized services of farmers. The clarification of the above impact provides a basis for future relocation community governance and policies.

1. Introduction

Eliminating poverty is a global challenge. When reframed in terms of human development, poverty is a constraint that denies individuals human agency in multiple parts of their lives [1]. In 2015, the United Nations claimed that the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) had succeeded in reducing global poverty levels by half (as measured compared to the 1990 levels). Nonetheless, global poverty and hunger remain serious problems [2]. The World Bank reported that 689 million people lived in extreme poverty in 2017, and the COVID-19 pandemic may have further pushed about 150 million people into extreme poverty between 2020 and 2021 [3]. Over the past decades, countries at different levels of development have contributed to global poverty reduction. Numerous anti-poverty strategies and programs have been established, and they are a fundamental component of welfare policies in both developed and developing countries [4]. For example, the Europe 2020 strategy includes “Promoting Social Inclusion and Combating Poverty” as one of its 10 integrated guidelines, aiming to lift 20 million people out of poverty and social exclusion by 2020 [5]. In Mexico, Oportunidades, founded in 2002, was, until 2014, Mexico’s main conditional cash transfer program (CCTs) to alleviate poverty. It aimed to break the transmission of poverty to the next generation through investments in human capital, beginning in rural areas and then expanding to urban areas. In 2014, the program was renamed Prospera [6]. Brazil is different from Mexico. BPC (Continuous Cash Benefits) and Bolsa Familia (Family Grant, BFP) are the two most prominent anti-poverty programs. They are among the biggest in the world, and, from the beginning, they have covered both urban and rural areas [7]. India also has a long history of direct and targeted interventions to fight poverty through workfare schemes and subsidized food and farm inputs. The main objective of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREG) is to enhance the livelihood security of farmers by providing 100 days of guaranteed wage employment to every household in unskilled manual work [8]. In Pakistan, the poverty incidence is very high, and the government implemented the Social Safety Net Program (SSNP), Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund (PPAF), and many other microfinance schemes to reduce poverty [9].

Thanks to these strategies, many countries and regions have seen significant reductions in the number of people living in poverty. These experiences and lessons are also worthy of learning and study by various countries and regions to better meet the challenges they face. However, while important progress has been made in global poverty reduction efforts, challenges remain for some emerging economies: for example, implementing targeted transfers creates new policy challenges [10]. In addition, climate change, natural disasters, and social risks will also exacerbate uncertainties in the development of world society and pose great challenges to global poverty reduction. Based on building a community with a shared future for humankind, working together to eradicate poverty is in line with global common interests and is a common mission and goal of all humankind. Over the past 40 years, China has made significant progress towards its poverty alleviation goals; the rural population under the current poverty line has decreased by 739.9 million [11]. Providing China’s successful practical experience as a reference for other developing countries and regions and, thus, for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), is undoubtedly a main way for China to make a greater contribution to humanity.

In 1980, the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region moved the entire population from the arid mountainous areas in the south to the easy-to-farm plains in the north using the “Diaozhuang resettlement”. It solved the food and clothing problems of 280,000 people and achieved good socioeconomic benefits. In 2001, China’s former State Planning Commission formally introduced the concept of “anti-poverty relocation and settlement”. According to “China’s Rural Poverty Alleviation and Development Program (2001–2010)”, China aimed to carry out pilot policies according to the principle of “government guidance and voluntary relocation of farmers” over the following 10 years, but the overall scale of relocation was relatively small. In 2011, China gradually established a policy system for “anti-poverty relocation and settlement” with the goal of “moving out, stabilizing, developing and getting rich”, marked by the “Outline of Poverty Alleviation and Development in Rural China (2011–2020)” and the “Twelfth Five-Year Plan for Relocation to Poverty Alleviation”, changing the government from a facilitator to a leader. After 2015, poverty governance began to enter the stage of targeted poverty alleviation, relocation, and settlement as one of the basic means. It was also in this year that China launched the anti-poverty relocation and settlement program (ARSP), which aimed to lift the poor out of poverty and achieve sustainable livelihood. In 2016, the “National 13th Five-Year Plan for Anti-poverty Relocation and Settlement” proposed to relocate and resettle 10 million poor people within five years to meet their basic needs, broaden income channels, and improve living standards, so as to fundamentally solve the problem of poverty alleviation and ultimately achieve common prosperity for everyone. In 2020, China officially announced that 98.99 million impoverished rural residents living under the current poverty line were lifted out of poverty. All 832 impoverished counties and 128,000 impoverished villages have been removed from the poverty list, eliminating overall regional poverty. Compared with the traditional relief type (blood transfusion), relocation and settlement highlight the characteristics of the development style (blood creation). Improving the production and living conditions at the relocation site can not only help farmers escape poverty and become rich, but also relieve the tension between the ecological environment and social development in the out-migrating area.

With the end of the massive relocation in 2020, the ARSP has entered the post-support stage to achieve “stability, employment, and gradually being able to get rich” for farmers. Judging from the literature, livelihood has been the object of research and policies [12,13]. Livelihood reconstruction should be a core process in the planning, implementation and post-implementation stages [14]. Thus, what exactly is the impact of the ARSP on the livelihood of farmers? The answer to this question is the key to strengthening the targeting of policies in the post-support stage. Existing studies have discussed the issue mainly in terms of the links between livelihood sustainability and environmental protection [15], the links between migration and livelihood [16], well-being and ecosystem dependence [17], livelihood capital [18], livelihood strategy choices [19], livelihood resilience [20], and risk resistance capacity [21]. Further, some studies have begun to draw on the geographic school of thought to identify the spatial distribution of poverty, finding that there is a clear spatial poverty trap (SPT) in rural China [22,23]. One study revealed the impact of spatial externality on rural poverty from the perspective of public expenditure fluctuation [24], where a spatial scale effect was found to exist in regional poverty features and in the impact of geographical capital on regional poverty [25].

These studies have valuable implications for us. However, there are also two shortcomings. On the one hand, although numerous studies have been conducted on the relationship between anti-poverty policies (including the ARSP) and livelihood, only a few qualitative studies exist on the topic. These quantitative studies are analyzed mainly with the help of objective-level measurable indicators, but these may ignore, to some extent, the influence of some subjective-level non-quantifiable indicators (individual experiences, life habits, etc.). Inspired by James C. Scott, we can think of the ARSP as a social project to transform the productive and living environments of villages and poor people. To avoid the failure of the state perspective, it is not enough to rely on the top-down state perspective in policy formulation and evaluation of the ARSP. (For example, the government believes that building more comfortable houses and industrial parks will help poor people escape poverty, but is this really the case? In this study, we found that farmers believe that living in a new house will increase costs, and that the nearby industrial park has not completely solved the problem of labor surplus; most of them still have low income levels, and their source of livelihood is mainly migrant work.) Therefore, it is necessary to combine this with a bottom-up perspective of farmers (e.g., what does the change brought by the relocation mean to them?). On the other hand, although researchers have noted the importance of spatial factors in understanding poverty, they have been limited to analyzing the association between the two at the macro level. On the contrary, they have not focused on the micro level to understand the changes in and reconfiguration of farmers’ livelihood from a spatial perspective, especially in the context of the ARSP.

Overall, this article fills the literature gap by using an explanatory framework of livelihood space to assess the impact of the ARSP on farmers’ livelihood in four dimensions: production, residential, social interactions, and institutions, and provide a basis for relevant policies. The structure of the article is as follows.

The first section is the introduction. Firstly, a brief review of national and regional experiences in poverty reduction is presented around the topic of global poverty. Secondly, the basic information surrounding China’s poverty reduction policies (especially the ARSP) is highlighted. Finally, a literature review is used to identify the research gaps and put forward research propositions. The second section is the framework. The spatial perspective of poverty research and the concept of geographical capital are briefly described, on the basis of which the analytical framework of livelihood space is constructed and deconstructed. The third section is the methodology. The study area, research methodology, specific implementation process, and data sources are presented in more detail. The fourth section is the findings. The impacts and performance of production space, residential space, social interaction space, and institutional space are analyzed and interpreted in relation to the research data. The fifth section is the discussion. It mainly connects and compares the findings with those of previous studies and provides insights into the differences found in this paper. The sixth section is the conclusion. The significance of this study is again clarified, and several specific policy recommendations are made based on the findings.

2. Framework

In the 1950s, the early school of new economic geography believed that economic backwardness and poverty were closely related to the geographical environment. By the 1990s, the spatial perspective began to be introduced into poverty research. Increasingly, geographers have put poverty back on the map by pointing to its intricate spatial manifestations [26]. One study found that poverty became more concentrated in space [27]. This spatial concentration of poverty due to geographic factors is called the “SPT” [28]. The SPT is a persistent state of poverty caused by location characteristics or high migration costs [29], which is usually distributed in areas with poor ecological environments and a lack of infrastructure and public services. The notion of geographical capital usefully highlights the importance of the spatial patterning of disadvantage [30]. Over time, environmental, economic, social, and cultural factors other than natural resources have gradually been incorporated into the category “geographical capital”. Meanwhile, researchers have also begun to focus on comprehensive poverty and identify it based on the multiple dimensions of the economy, society, and policy [31].

The spatial turn in poverty studies is instructive for studying the ARSP. Spatial poverty theory emphasizes that space is one of the poverty-causing factors, and that a poor and closed geographical environment can compress the livelihood space of poor people, restrict their production and lifestyle, and lead to a homogeneous economic structure and weaker development capacity. According to this logic, the path of poverty reduction is to improve or rebuild livelihood space. The ARSP is a way to escape the SPT by moving poor people living in areas with “bad soil and water conditions which can’t afford households’ life” to resettle in places with better natural resources. At the same time, the rich connotation of geographical capital shows that poverty may be reflected in potential social exclusion and lack of opportunities, in addition to low income levels. Therefore, when assessing the impact of the ARSP on farmers’ livelihood, it is important to consider the impact of institutional and social indicators, in addition to focusing on some clear and simple monetary indicators (e.g., income and consumption levels). Research has confirmed that poverty rates can be reduced by empowering families in political, economic, and social aspects [32]. In conclusion, the concept of geographical capital can help us to better identify the needs and barriers of farmers to improve their livelihood space, and then adapt policies according to the actual situation to avoid the misalignment between policy supply and farmers’ needs.

Many studies have developed frameworks for livelihood space. One study divided the livelihood space of migrants into economic space, policy space, public service space, and living space [33]. In another study, the authors constructed a quality evaluation index system for farmers’ livelihood space from the four dimensions of life, production, society, and institution [34]. Referring to existing research results, we divided the livelihood space of farmers into production space, residential space, social interaction space, and institutional space (Figure 1). Production space refers to the functional area and capacity of farmers to engage in productive activities. The analysis indicators include the rate of non-farm employment and the level of household savings. Residential space refers to the area where families live daily. The analysis indicators include housing area and the accessibility of infrastructure and public service facilities. Social interaction space refers to the space constructed by farmers through social networks. The analysis indicators include the objects and frequency of social interactions. Institutional space refers to the institutional environment. The analysis indicators include the administrative settings and work content of the community and village. These four dimensions are not completely separate, but are interconnected and mutually influential.

For production space, the ARSP attempts to fundamentally help poor people to escape poverty through a series of measures. Objectively speaking, it creates favorable conditions for widening production space. However, the non-agricultural resettlement mode also breaks the original production order, and the yard economy—which is an important part of daily production—disappears, causing production skills to become ineffective. At the same time, the mismatch between the industrial structure of the resettlement area and the demographic structure of the village also hinders the expansion of production space. In terms of residential space, due to relocation, farmers will move from dilapidated bungalows into spacious buildings, public service facilities in the resettlement area will become more centralized, and accessibility will be further enhanced. In terms of social interaction space, relocation will tear up farmers’ original social network, but it will also integrate them on a larger scale. In addition, the change in production space also simultaneously promotes a shift in social relationship ties from blood and geographical ties to karma and interest ties. For institutional space, relocation will break the original administrative division, and several villages will be concentrated and resettled in the same community, turning farmers from villagers into community residents. Meanwhile, the ARSP, as a government-led intervention, has a campaign-style character in practice, and the communities have more complex governance issues, which pose new requirements for the construction of institutional space.

3. Methodology

3.1. Case Study Area

Nanshan village is located in the mountainous area in the north of Laohu town, Dongping County, Shandong Province, China (Figure 2). For the basic information about the village, please refer to

Table 1. Basic information of Nanshan village.

Population	Cultivated Land (Mu)	Subsidies Standard of the ARSP
		General Households		Registered Impoverished Households
		Compensation (CNY)	Housing (m2)	Compensation (CNY)	Housing (m2)
488	700	18,000/per person	40/per person	25,000/per person	25/per person

. In 2016, Shandong Province issued “The 13th Five-Year Plan for Poverty Alleviation Relocation and Resettlement in Shandong Province”. The plan proposed to implement the ARSP in 4 cities and 6 counties (including Dongping), plan and build 39 concentrated settlements, and resettle a total of 39,834 people. Dongping was one of the counties that underwent the most heavy-duty poverty alleviation in Shandong Province, involving a total of 5 townships (streets), 16 villages, and 15,748 people, accounting for about 40% of the total relocation population in the province. Among this population, the relocation population of Laohu town was 41,405 people.

In 2017, Nanshan village completed the relocation of the whole village, primarily into Binan community (The community contained two anti-poverty relocation settlement villages and two reservoir immigrant villages.) According to “The Old House Demolition Compensation Incentives of The Laohu Town Nanshan Village”, villagers who were born in, moved to, or lived in Nanshan village long before 31 December 2016 received CNY 18,000 and 40 m² of resettlement housing per capita (excluding the storage room area). At the same time, the main house, gates, and courtyard walls within the relocation area were valued for compensation and demolition. Compensation proceeds were used for housing replacement, refunds were issued for any overpayment, or a supplemental payment was offered for any deficiency. Currently, Nanshan village has completed the relocation, and all compensation and incentives have been issued according to the policy.

We also felt the impact of the ARSP on farmers’ livelihood during the field survey. Before the relocation, Nanshan village was located in a mountainous area with poor water conservancy conditions which was far from the market town, and the income sources were mainly drought-tolerant crops such as corn, cotton, and millet. Overall, the living conditions of farmers were poor, and their income and living standards were low. After the relocation, farmers moved into spacious and bright buildings (Scheme 1). However, due to various reasons, such as a loss of agricultural income, lack of work skills, and low wages, more people (more than 80%) chose to go out to work. To address this situation, the local government has been actively developing industrial parks and providing employment training to help rural families achieve sustainable livelihood.

3.2. Material Collection and Process

This article is a qualitative study, aiming to assess the impact of relocation on farmers’ livelihood from four aspects: production, livelihood, social interaction, and institutions. We conducted a field survey in Nanshan village between February and June 2022.

For material collection, this study used the semi-structured interview and semi-participatory observation methods. The snowball sampling method was used for sampling, which ensured the randomness of the sample selection. The demographics of the interviewees are shown in the

Table 2. Demographics of the interviewees (N = 7).

No.	Name	Gender	Age	Family Size	Occupation	Role in the ARSP
1	D.Y.X.	Female	40	5	Township official	Implementer
2	Z.C.H.	Male	54	6	Farmer and worker	Relocation target
3	L.N.S.	Male	57	5	Self-employed	Relocation target
4	D.M.L.	Female	35	5	Worker	Relocation target
5	W.S.	Female	65	4	None	Relocation target
6	X.S.J.	Male	51	6	Village official	Implementer and relocation target
7	W.C.Y.	Male	45	5	Community official	Implementer

. The outline of the interview was set based on research experience and the relevant literature (

Table 3. Outline of the interview.

Object	Indicator	Question Description
Township official	Overview of the ARSP	The history of relocation in Laohu Township?
		What is the post-relocation support situation and future outlook?
Community official		How was the resettlement community established?
		Relocation policy and its implementation?
		Demographic structure of the community?
		Challenges of centralized resettlement for governance?
		Prospects for future development?
Village official		Relocation policy and its implementation?
		Demographic structure of the village?
		Demolition of old houses and land reclamation?
		Challenges of relocation for governance? Future prospects?
Rural household	Production	Family population? Relocation compensation?
		Is there a loan? Source of income? Do you attend training?
	Residential	Housing size? Community environment? Travel conditions?
	Social interaction	Interaction with relatives, friends and other villagers?
	Institutional	Do community/village staff visit homes?
		Are professional services such as psychological adaptation provided?

). The semi-structured interview method is flexible and can obtain a high amount of information while stimulating the initiative of both sides of the interview, which places a higher demand on the researchers’ control and guidance ability. In addition, although the semi-participatory observation method provides a shallow understanding of the problem and the observed information is more scattered, this information still verifies and complements the formal interview.

Before entering the field, we used personal connections to establish contact with the director of the Laohu town relocation office (DYX). After explaining the research intentions and gaining her trust and permission, she gave us a panoramic introduction to the ARSP in Laohu town. After that, she helped us to contact the officials of the community and village. Moreover, we interviewed four farmers. The interview sites were located in their homes or the fields, since familiar and safe environments can appropriately reduce respondents’ concerns and communication pressure. With the interviewees’ consent, the interview audio was recorded and compiled into text on the same day, with the initials replacing the actual name of the interviewee. During this period, we also carefully observed the decoration and furnishings of the farmers’ homes, so we could quickly understand their living standards. Sometimes, we participated in their chat and carefully observed the chat topics and attitudes.

The data sources and statistics on the ARSP in this section were provided by the Laohu town relocation office, Binan community, and Nanshan village.

4. Findings

4.1. The Expansion and Shrinkage of Production Space Show Stratified Characteristics at the Age and Economic Levels

The ARSP is a “double-edged sword”. At the macro level, relocation has moved people out of the SPT. The centralized resettlement mode and the post-support polices have further optimized the production environment of farmers, which has contributed to the expansion of production space to a certain extent. At the micro level, before the relocation, the farming radius was small, the courtyard areas were large, the production autonomy was strong, and farmers mainly engaged in agriculture and livestock breeding. Since the relocation, the original production space has shown a shrinking trend and faced problems such as long farming distances and the disappearance of vegetable plots. At the same time, although the idea of non-agricultural resettlement has allowed the remaining young labor force to enter the labor market, the sources of income have gradually been diversified. However, changes in the macro-production environment also force them to change production methods and habits, and their original production skills are useless. In other words, agriculture is mainly being squeezed out of local livelihoods due to economic, environmental, and social changes [35]. In addition, with the aggravation of aging and population outflow, the area of abandoned land is also increasing, which is the reality of the transformation of farmers’ production space after the relocation. However, from the perspective of the heterogeneity of personal livelihood capital, it is found that the internal impact of this external environmental change on individual production space shows the characteristic of being highly differentiated. That is, the degree of profit and loss of production space due to the ARSP varies from person to person, showing stratification effects among farmers at the age and economic levels.

The first effect is age stratification. Affected by poor farming conditions, the limited absorption capacity of the community’s labor market, and low labor remuneration levels, more than half of the young labor force in the village has outflowed. The existing population of the village is mainly the elderly, women, and children. On the contrary, the labor-intensive industries represented by clothing and weaving in the nearby industrial parks are mainly for women under 45 (up to 50 years old), which means that people who exceed the age requirements have no work. The elderly who can still work can only continue to farm (before the land is transferred, it is still cultivated by the farmers themselves), and their living expenses mostly rely on pension insurance and the support of other family members.

As the interviewee Z.C.H. said, “We used to live in the mountains, where farming was our main source of livelihood, but the water conditions were not good, so we had to rely on natural conditions to live. Now, most young people choose to go out to work; the family is left with the old, the sick and disabled, and the elderly, who have no income and do not go to the workers’ homes when they are old. The elderly still have to rely on farming. At present, the land has not been transferred out, coupled with the land away from the community, it takes a long time to go back and forth” (Z.C.H., 20220627).

The second effect is economic stratification. Taking farmers’ household savings level as an example, we found that this indicator directly affects the freedom to choose units (sets) and broaden the space for future production. With a high level of household savings, farmers can not only live in spacious houses but also use geographical advantages to enrich income-generating channels, rather than choosing a relatively compact apartment type to avoid being indebted. The study found that farmers with a comparative advantage in non-agricultural sectors could benefit from relocation to nearby towns [36].

The interviewee L.N.S. told us, “The current relocation policy is a per capita subsidy of 18,000 yuan, and the house is compensated according to the standard of 300 or 580 yuan/m². Generally, 80% of farmers can live in new houses with only these compensations. Taking me as an example, there were a total of two houses before the relocation, with a total compensation of 170,000 yuan, coupled with a subsidy for five people. After purchasing a new house of 100 m², 80,000 was left, which I can use for other things. However, farmers with small house areas and few family members may need to pay in some money when purchasing houses” (L.N.S., 20220627).

4.2. The Improvement of Residential Space Is Uneven among the Physical and Social Groups

Residential space is where farmers live daily. It can be divided into physical and social aspects. The former relates mainly to the construction of community infrastructure and public service facilities, which is also an important measure to solve the problem of “Two assurances and three guarantees” for farmers. The former site of Nanshan village was in a mountainous area, where the production and living conditions were poor, and the daily medical treatment, schooling, and travel of farmers were inconvenient. Since the relocation, the infrastructure of the resettlement community has been completed, the gap between urban and rural public service levels is narrowing, and the distance to schools, hospitals, markets, and bus stations has been shortened to an average of about 3.5 km. The accessibility of life space plays a different role in promoting the development of farmers [37]. At the same time, optimizing the community living environment also provides health protection for the lives of farmers. “Here is cleaner and healthier than before” is the simplest cognition and expression of their new “home”. In this regard, the interviewee D.M.L. said, “The original living conditions were not good, and young people were unwilling to continue living there after work. Nowadays, the community environment is much better than before. Special property companies are in the community, and people in public welfare positions are responsible for cleaning work. Going out is also much more convenient, as schools, supermarkets, and township hospitals are only a few hundred meters away” (D.M.L., 20220626).

The latter mainly refers to the daily lifestyle and habits of farmers. As far as the rural community is concerned, the living pattern may become a perspective to examine the changes in lifestyles and habits. Before the relocation, their living pattern was mainly a scattered and independent bungalow courtyard with a shed for raising poultry, with a sizeable total use area, providing conditions for developing the courtyard economy. At the same time, farmers had almost zero cost for food, drink, and fuel. However, the resettlement community has a unified design, comprising high-rise buildings with fixed units and a limited area, and the original living space has been further compressed. Moreover, tap water and natural gas have increased the cost of living. According to a relocation household, an older man in the community weighed the water in the toilet tank and calculated that it would cost about CNY 0.05 to flush the toilet once. Therefore, to save money, some older people subjectively control the number of times they use the toilet per day, accumulate several uses before washing, and even use the open ground near the community (there is no public toilet in the community). Over an extended period, the sanitary conditions in farmers’ homes will gradually deteriorate. In addition, there are conflicts between traditional living habits and the order of modern life, such as cooking by burning firewood and “growing vegetable by destroying green belts”. From the perspective of the analytical framework of “spatial change-social adaptation”, the ARSP has significantly improved the physical level of residential space through spatial relocation and reconstruction, as well as the social level.

The interviewee W.S. said, “It’s good to relocate into the community, but I lost a source of income, and the cost of living increased. For example, I used to find branches in the wild about cooking, drink water without paying, grow vegetables and grain by myself, and keep a few chickens and ducks in captivity to ensure meat and eggs. But not now; the property company does not allow wood burning, and captive poultry is not allowed. Now the young, healthy people can go to farming, but the older ones cannot; in this situation, it has to rely on buying food and drink” (W.S., 20220113).

4.3. Expanding Social Interaction Space Coexists with the Self-Isolation of Social Interaction in the Short Term

Although the relocation has microscopically broken the original living pattern, torn the long-established neighborhood relationship, and distanced relationships with relatives and friends, the centralized resettlement mode means that farmers are regrouped on a larger scale. At the same time, changes in production and residential space also provide opportunities for them to expand their social interaction space, such as entering the nearby industrial parks to work and participating in recreational activities. The social relationship ties have gradually changed from blood and geographical to business and interests. Ideally, concentrated residence increases the number of potential contacts, objects, and opportunities to chat more and engage in conversations. During the survey, we learned that, because the reservoir resettlement villages in Binan community belong to landless resettlement villages, they sometimes have contact with farmers from Nanshan village for the purchase of cemetery plots. This increases the probability of communication and familiarity between farmers and is conducive to reproducing their social capital. In short, from a macro point of view, the overall scale of social interaction space has gradually expanded since the relocation.

However, our research found that the natural pattern of farmers’ social interaction space seems different. The current resident population in the village can be divided into two types. One is continued farmers, who still live a farming life of “awake with the sunrise and rest with the sunset”, and workers, who also go out early and return late. The other is those who stay at home, mainly the elderly and women who take care of the family, whose social interaction during the day is generally distributed in the corridor of the village building or the nearby shed, likely in the evening. They rarely go through several buildings to villages or other places in the community, except for going to the square to see a play one or two times per month. Unlike the village society that has heard about chickens and dogs, the current apartment-style housing emphasizes the privacy of personal life. The stairs and anti-theft doors have become the “roadblock” for farmers’ interactions. In fact, farmers have fewer cross-village social activities due to factors such as livelihood differences and housing segregation, and even the frequency of interaction with village households is lower than before.

In short, since the relocation, farmers’ social scope and social network have not been significantly extended with time but are still relatively closed. That is, social interaction tends to cause self-isolation in the short term. According to the actual situation, there are two causes of self-isolation. First, farmers in the same village have substantial homogeneity in living habits and cultural psychology, the interpersonal relationships formed in the village society are stable, social trust and recognition are high, and the villagers are more inclined to communicate with each other. At the same time, this interaction is also conducive to maintaining the “sense of place”, which can be seen from the gossip of farmers. The survey found that their topics of daily chatting included memories of previous life, worries about current life, and discussions on current policies, in addition to chewing the fat and discussing new things in the community. Second, in addition to the above differences and housing distinctions, this also includes the heterogeneity of communication objects and the sense of relative deprivation caused by policy differences. Reservoir resettlements can receive a per capita relocation subsidy of CNY 25,000 and a post-assistance subsidy of CNY 600 per capita per year before 30 June 2026. For some farmers, policy differences are a topic to talk about after dinner, but the relative deprivation caused by them also hinders communication between them.

4.4. The Institutional Space Faces the Double Squeeze of “Campaign-Style Relocation” and “Normalizing Management”

Institutional space is an essential guarantee for reconstructing livelihood space. However, this survey found that institutional space faces a double squeeze. The first is the squeeze brought by “Campaign-style relocation”. This double squeeze leads to governance dilemmas such as difficulties in social integration, insecure sustainable livelihoods, and tight service resources [38]. This is mainly reflected in three aspects: the scale of relocation, the depth of mobilization, and the intensity of resource integration. Specifically, traces of “Campaign-style relocation” can be seen in Nanshan village and Binan community in the relocation mobilization and housing selection. Regarding the relocation scene, X.S.J., the party branch secretary of Nanshan village, recalled the following: “At that time, the village committee members went door-to-door in two classes to visit and carrying out ideological work. Results showed that 70% of farmers were willing to relocate, and when they chose a house, the proportionality value reached more than 90%. They did not move partly because they could not make the decision alone, and partly because their house size and family size were small, so they received very little compensation and would have had to take extra money to live in a new house. After a demolition, these people also came along, and now all relocated. Everyone calculated their account, found that the result was very suitable, so they decided to move” (X.S.J., 20220626).

W.C.Y., the secretary of Binan community, described the scene of the housing selection at that time. He said the following: “When the house was divided, it was intended to let everyone draw lots, but one-third of them did not want to come. Later we thought of a way for people unwilling to relocate to live in the original place, but whoever comes first can choose the house first, and the house number is optional. Later, the vast majority came to choose, and the remaining people felt no need to consume anymore. Some people come to the line two days in advance and sleep in the line at night” (W.C.Y., 20220112).

Judging from the results, the short-term effects of “Campaign-style relocation” are remarkable and take full advantage of the benefits of the socialist system with Chinese characteristics. However, it faces challenges in adapting to the livelihood of farmers, demolishing old houses, and supplying public services in the resettlement community [39]. At the same time, as a product of forced institutional changes, “fragmentation” and “transition” are its core characteristics. Further, from the analysis framework of “Institution and Life”, there are also conflicts and tensions between “daily life” and “institutional creation” within this type of community [40].

The second is the squeeze brought by “Normalizing management”. Before the relocation, the “administrative district” was always an intermediary between townships and villages. An “Administrative district” is a quasi-administrative organization between townships (streets) and administrative villages. Currently, the administrative district of Shandong Province is the most complete and standardized. After the relocation, although the community nominally replaced the “administrative district”, the functions and status of the two were the same. Farmers still referred to the party secretary of Binan community as the “administrative district” secretary. From the content point of view, the current township communities and villages continue the previous “Normalizing management” relationship. “Normalizing management” is mainly reflected in the following three aspects. The first aspect is the regularization of community and village committee staffing. For example, community officials include a party secretary, director, and instructor; village officials include a party branch secretary (also village director) and accountant. The second aspect is the regularization of working funds. The community has no independent economic rights. Nanshan village has neither a fixed collective income nor additional office expenses. The third aspect is the normalization of work content. The daily work is still based on the assigned tasks of the higher-level government departments. On the contrary, less attention is paid to the unique problems in the transitional stage, such as culture, psychological adaptation, and professional service supply. In short, the resettlement community still follows a “management logic” related to the nature of targeted anti-poverty work. At the same time, there is also a lack of institutional response to the “fragmentation” and “transition” in the community service system. This may expose farmers to the risk of exclusion and marginalization due to a lack of identity, participation, and special demand expression channels.

5. Discussion

Based on qualitative work in Nanshan village, this paper draws on the framework of livelihood space to examine the impact of the ARSP on the livelihood of farmers from four dimensions: production, residential, social interaction, and institutions.

The results show that livelihood space is a composite system of livelihood practices and that the impact of relocation on livelihood is multidimensional and deep. Our findings are in accordance with recent studies indicating that relocation has various negative socioeconomic impacts on livelihood, leading to significant impoverishment risks [41]. The ARSP destroyed the stable production structure and order while transferring farmers out of the SPT. Further analysis indicates that the impact has stratified characteristics in terms of age and the level of household savings. Older people are more likely to see these challenges due to the disappearance of income and vegetable plots. Farmers with high levels of household savings are more likely to see the opportunities because they can use compensation and geographical advantages to conduct business for asset accumulation. A study on the migration of Bangladeshi fishermen also expressed a similar perspective. That is, the results of immigration are highly differentiated. For poorer fishermen, immigration is a way to cope with shocks, and fishermen with better resources can use it for asset accumulation [42]. This study also found that, although the government has been trying to build industrial parks and carry out skills training, migrant work is still the main source of income for farmers. Combined with the results of the interviews, the reason is not just the lack of employment opportunities [43]. It may also be related to low wages, a long tradition of migrant work, and occupational prejudice (e.g., men will think that garment and weaving factories are where women work).

The evidence shows that the transformation of farmers’ lifestyles and habits shows hysteresis compared to community building. Adaptation is a process that may take years to complete, as it is not a short-term process. Meanwhile, this study found that farmers’ social interactions are characterized by self-segregation and that the objects of interaction are highly homogeneous in the short term. A study found that urban–rural interface residents attempt to realize their social and cultural aspirations of reproducing kampung ways of life characterized by dense social networks and common practices such as mutual aid [44]. This provides an idea to explain our findings, but it does not seem to be sufficient. We also found that apartment-style housing discourages social interaction among households. Usually, it is found that the space in front of houses as a de facto veranda is used for social interaction [45]. However, we do not know how long this trend of self-segregation will continue. Nonetheless, in any case, we believe that this trend will gradually weaken, as it was seen during this research that farmers interact with other residents for reasons such as land transactions and work.

Finally, the current study concluded that the construction and management of the community has been led by the government from the time of the relocation to the present. This is substantively justified in practice because relocation involves extensive social mobilization and a variety of complex issues, and governance arrangements appear to generally strengthen the enforcement capacity of political institutions [46]. However, with the completion of the relocation task, will the continuation of this normalizing management mode be conducive to achieving sustainable livelihoods for farmers? This is a question worth discussing. Resettlement communities, similar to urban–rural interfaces, are characterized by a “rural-urban” transition, where the living style, travel patterns, and production and living systems will gradually change to urban. This is both an opportunity and a challenge for communities and farmers, as many urbanized services are already far beyond the capacity and scope of resettlement communities and villages. Moreover, it is certainly more difficult for communities and villages to apply political pressure on the government to tackle problems [47]. Generally speaking, the government tends to provide urban services to dense urban areas rather than to more dispersed urban–rural interfaces [48]. In this case, implementing a change from management to governance is necessary. Governance includes the actions of the government (the state), private sector (the market), and civil society (the community) [49], but the government and its various forms still plays a central and key role.

The limitations of this study include the following aspects. First of all, the logical structure of the framework and the measurement indicators of each dimension may need to be further analyzed and revised. Secondly, this study also used a single methodology and a small sample size. The relationship between the ARSP and livelihood is complex, and not all impacts can be presented using qualitative materials. Further research should attempt to construct a system of indicators for measuring livelihood space.

6. Conclusions

The ARSP is an important means of poverty reduction in China and has thus far helped 10 million poor people escape poverty completely. Moreover, the pressure on the regional ecological environment has been effectively alleviated. In the later stage of the support, the focus and difficulty have concerned understanding methods to help farmers build sustainable livelihoods and prevent any return to poverty. Against this background, assessing the impact of the ARSP on farmers’ livelihood and providing a basis for policies are of positive significance for completing the second half of this article on poverty alleviation and relocation, telling the Chinese story well, and providing a reference for other developing countries and regions. Although this was an area-specific study representing only the rural areas of Shandong Province, China, our findings provide insights into achieving sustainable livelihoods for farmers from a livelihood space perspective. We hereby propose the following policy recommendations based on our study:

(1)

Promote the simultaneous construction of resettlement areas and industrial parks in combination with local social conditions and rural revitalization planning, by introducing diversified industries to absorb labor and help farmers achieve high-quality employment locally. Meanwhile, allow farmers with a low economic status to pay for houses in installments;

(2)

Improve the construction of community infrastructure or properly transform the spatial layout to weaken the impact of spatial isolation on the social interaction of farmers;

(3)

Help farmers to develop new social capital via, for example, the establishment of various interest and cooperative organizations;

(4)

Engage more actors in community governance according to the needs of community governance, to strengthen the capacity to provide public services, especially professional services.