A preliminary study on the features of Chinese social work forces’ involvement in rural anti-poverty

ABSTRACT

In 2015, the Chinese government announced the “Statement on Winning the Battle against Extreme Poverty” and launched a series of more intensive nationwide programmes targeting absolute poverty eradication. Chinese social agents from all walks of life, such as professional social work forces, were called and united by the central government to be involved in the battle. Through document research and in-depth interviews, this qualitative research aims to explore the Chinese features of social workers’ involvement in rural anti-poverty by figuring out why and how Chinese social workers undertook the campaign. The authors found that Chinese social workers’ anti-poverty work had strong state-oriented characteristics, and this work was greatly influenced by practical conditions, namely, embracing the administrative work method of designating staff to poor areas, pairing assistance, following up the social inclusion of the relocated population from inhospitable areas and taking full advantage of the new farm tool, e-commerce.

摘要

2015年, 中国政府发布了《中共中央国务院关于打赢脱贫攻坚战的决定》,并在全国范围内展开了更加深入的消除绝对贫困的系列行动。在国家的号召下, 全社会 (包括社会工作专业力量) 参与了脱贫攻坚战。通过文献研究和深度访谈, 本研究从社会工作专业力量参与农村脱贫攻坚的原因和方式等方面探究中国社会工作者参与农村扶贫的中国特色。研究发现, 与其他国家相比, 中国社会工作专业力量反贫困工作体现出了强烈的国家导向, 也与中国社会实际情况密切相关。具体表现在:采用派社工到贫困地区扶贫的驻点工作方式, 采取对口支援的扶贫模式, 关注易地扶贫搬迁人口的社会融入问题, 以及充分利用电商平台优势推动农村脱贫。

KEYWORDS:

• Chinese features
• social work
• rural anti-poverty
• preliminary study
• interview cases

Acknowledgments

The authors are appreciative of all the interviewees who generously shared their valuable experiences of poverty relief. In the absence of their help, this research would not be possible. Moreover, heartfelt gratitude should be expressed to Xiaochai Yan for putting us in contact with some potential interviewees and the social work teachers and students of Jinggangshan University, such as professor Xiaoli Liu and He You, Teacher Lingling Zhao and Hongqin Yang, and the Students of Chen Liu, Yuqin Zhang, Qiaoqiao Xiong, Xiaoya Yu, Longyan Wang and Rongrong Jiao. Furthermore, the two corresponding authors want to express their sincere thanks to other authors who are undergraduates and graduates of social work. During the past three years, they did not give up but made continuous efforts to make this research accomplished. More surprisingly, benefiting from this research, the undergraduates have changed their attitudes towards social work major, from losing interest in social work to being touched by the power of social work in changing society. Finally, all of them made the decision to apply for MSW. Lastly, the author team is grateful to the reviewers, editors, editorial assistant Ricky Fung and the production team of the China Journal of Social Work.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Author contributions

Conceptualisation, Y.C.; Data curation, Y.C., X.H., W.C., H.L., Y.G., Y.Z., C.Z. and A.L.; Formal analysis, Y.C., X.H., W.C., H.L., Y.G., Y.Z., C.Z. and A.L.; Funding acquisition, Y.C.; Investigation, Y.C., X.H., W.C., H.L., Y.G., Y.Z., C.Z. and A.L.; Methodology, Y.C.; Project administration, Y.C.; Resources, Y.C., X.H., W.C., H.L., Y.G., Y.Z., C.Z. and A.L.; Supervision, Y.C.; Validation, Y.C.; Visualisation, Y.C.; Writing – original draft, Y.C., X.H., W.C., H.L., Y.G., Y.Z., C.Z. and A.L.; Writing – review and editing, Y.C. and S.D. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the National Social Science Fund of China through grant 21CMZ046 and Jiangxi Provincial Office of Social Science Planning through grant 20JY45. All the authors would like to express sincere thanks to the two foundations for approving this research and supporting this paper to be published.