Development at borderlands: agricultural policy and local practice in Southwest China

Abstract

Development in China’s border ethnic regions has been driven by strong state intervention, yet existing scholarship often overemphasizes state dominance while overlooking grassroots agency. This dissertation examines how development is enacted and negotiated in everyday agricultural practices in southwestern China. Drawing on post-structuralism perspectives and an agency-centered approach, it conceptualizes development as a form of governance while highlighting local responses. The concept of bricolage is used to analyze how local actors adapt and recombine external interventions. Based on 12 months of fieldwork in Xishuangbanna, Southwest China, this study finds that land reform, cash crop promotion, and scientific knowledge dissemination have transformed local agrarian systems. However, these processes are neither linear nor state-determined but emerge through continuous negotiation, producing hybrid land arrangements, farming practices, and knowledge systems. The study argues that development should be understood as a relational and processual outcome of state—society interactions.