乡村概念辨析

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【英文标题】ON DISCRIMINATION OF RURAL DEFINITIONSZhang Xiaolin(Department of Geography,Nanjing Normal University,Nanjing 210097)

【内容提要】乡村地理学在我国人文地理学分支学科中发展比较薄弱，一些基本概念的模糊、理论体系的欠缺最为突出。本文试图从多重角度（职业的、生态的、社会文化的）对乡村这一概念进行系统的剖析，认为乡村界定的困难在于乡村本身的动态性、不整合性及相对性，以及城乡连续体这一背景，最后，笔者提出了以乡村性定义乡村的设想。

【英文摘要】Rural Geography is a weak branch of Human Geography in China,especially with regard to its theoretical development and somebasic concepts.First of all,this paper analyses rural definit-ions systematically from a multi-dimention point of view (occupational、ecological、socio-cul-tural).As an occupational de-finition,"rural"means an area where farming is the main mode ofproduction.As far as ecological definitions are concerned,it means a settlement whose population scale is smaller,outside urban area,with rural landscapes showing unmistakable signs of being dominated by extensive use of land,and with discrete s-patial units isolated from the outside world.Socio-cultural definitions are in terms of clear differences in behavior and attitude between people in rural and urban area,such as ways of life,spatial behavior and aspirations.
The author thinks that all the definitions are lack of delimitations of rural totally and essentially.Rural can not be summarized by a simple definition,because it is a complicated and indistinct conception.Difficulties of defining rural lie in dynamic evolution of the whole rural,unconformity among rural elements,relativity between rural and urban,and relevant rural-urban continuum,which makes the boundary between rural and urban more indefinite.To a certain extent rural is regarded as areas differing from urban greatly and the difference can be compared in many aspects such as production activities,ways of life,etc.The close extent between urban and rural represents different stages of rural development.
The author suggests rurality should take place of rural definitions under the background of urbanization in the world of today.Rurality refers to the manifestation of rural characters which take urban as criteria of reference within a specified area.The author draws his conclusions.First,every region can be looked on as a unity of urbanity and rurality.The more urbanity a region is,the less rurality it will have.Urban and rural are continuous and there is not any broken locality between them.Second,the size of rurality index takes urban as unit of reference.Using different urban criteria can reflect difference of rurality and stages of its development.Finally,rurality is concerned with scale,index and method which are used in our research.
We can weaken some rural characteristics and improve regi-onal urbanity in practice such as village-town planning and regional planning by estimating rurality index of different aresa.In order to be favourable to urban-rural planning and man-agement we also need to put forward rural countermeasures concerned correctly.

【关 键 词】乡村/城乡连续体/乡村性rural urban-rural continuum rurality

【 正 文】
乡村具有区别于城市地域的诸多特征，在当今城市化潮流下，乡村的功能不断发生变化，对乡村这个概念的认识似乎清楚但不明晰，人们往往理解不一致，致使乡村问题的理论研究受到影响，也困扰着乡村政策的制定，虽然在有关文献资料中已有大量的关于城乡划分标准的看法，但仍然缺乏一个足以说明乡村的总体性、本质性的概念。本文尝试从多重侧面剖析乡村这一综合性概念，以期对乡村地理学的理论研究有所裨益。

1 乡村概念的多重侧面

1.1 职业的定义与功能属性
乡村作为一个职业概念是与这个词在历史上的用法联系在一起的，这就是农村，指的是以农业生产为主体的地域，从事农业生产的人就是农民，以农业生产为主的劳动人民聚居的场所就是农村聚落。这一定义的出发点是把农业产业作为农村赖以存在、发展的前提，没有农业的存在，农村就不成其为农村，农民就不成其为农民。从界定农村的角度分析，这一定义的内涵和外延都缺乏严密性。
首先，以农业生产为主体，是以从事农业生产的人来决定，还是以农业生产在整个经济中的地位，或者是以农业生产用地在整个土地利用结构中的比重来确立呢？这个主体的含义是模糊的，没有明确说明以什么为主体。不管是以人，还是以经济、用地来确立主体都难以正确地把握当今的农村与非农村。
其次，对从事农业生产的人