LAUSR

I use “procedure,” rather than “resulting,” files in local archives to re-interpret the politics of China’s Land Reform. I demonstrate that, at the time, China’s rural population was not divided into landlords, rich peasants, middle peasants, poor peasants, and tenant peasants. Instead, the “rich tenant peasant” was an essential group to understand the land ownership and relations among the different groups. Furthermore, the existence of “one field with two owners” indicates that the land ownership in rural China was much more complicated than the dichotomous framework advocated by the Chinese Communist state. I discuss the methodological implications of my findings.