From "Passive Reception" to "Subject Self-Consciousness": The Path of Endogenous Transformation of Rural Revitalization Assistance Models in Underdeveloped Areas

A Sociological Study Based on the Practice of the "Hundreds, Thousands, and Ten Thousands Project" in Qingyuan City

Abstract

In the macro context of comprehensively promoting rural revitalization and the implementation of the "High-quality Development Project for Hundreds of Counties, Thousands of Towns, and Tens of Thousands of Villages" (hereinafter referred to as the "Hundreds, Thousands, and Ten Thousands Project") in Guangdong Province, rural development in underdeveloped areas faces a structural dilemma: the coexistence of high-intensity input of external resources and the lack of internal subjectivity. Traditional assistance models often fall into the trap of "blood transfusion dependency" and "governance involution," resulting in rural society exhibiting characteristics of "passive reception." How to activate the endogenous dynamics of town and village grassroots and achieve the transition from external push to internal drive is a core issue in the current modernization of county-level governance. Based on Endogenous Development Theory and Actor-Network Theory, this paper takes the "Government-Led, Town-Village Linkage" assistance model in Qingyuan City as a case study to analyze the practice logic of promoting the endogenous transformation of rural revitalization. The study finds that this model reconstructs the interactive relationship between the helper and the recipient through the institutional design of "Empowerment and Capacity Building": in the economic dimension, resource assetization and the marketization of the collective economy are achieved through "Strong Town and Wealthy Village Companies"; in the organizational dimension, grassroots action capability is reshaped through Party building leadership and town-village linkage; in the social dimension, farmers' "subject self-consciousness" is awakened through interest-sharing mechanisms. This transformation path indicates that rural revitalization in underdeveloped areas cannot rely solely on the one-way downward allocation of resources but needs to establish the status of the countryside as a subject of rights through mechanism innovation, building an endogenous development loop of "Government Guidance—Market Operation—Social Participation."