Disembedding and Reconstruction of Village-level Organization at an Ethnic Village from the Perspective of New Institutionalism under the Background of Tourism Development

Abstract

Grassroots social governance is a crucial measure for achieving stability and prosperity in rural communities and promoting rural revitalization in China. With tourism entering a rapidly changing era, the structural changes brought about by tourism have a disruptive impact on tourist destinations. This paper, from the perspective of new institutionalism, takes the organizational transformation of a village during its tourism development as a case study, to demonstrate the significance of village organization as a unit of the national society in helping local villagers regain social trust in the context of uncertainty brought about by tourism. The paper not only presents some accidental situations that occurred in the village organization during the tourism development process, such as the special process whereby a company replaced the village committee, but also, through a temporal review of the organizational transformation of the village, shows the revolutionary changes brought about by over 40 years of tourism development to the social structure of a village. The article further proposes that the grassroots organization of the state play a mediating and adjusting role for villagers in the face of uncertainty, and that the social significance of grassroots organization in the context of tourism modernity should be emphasized.