Doctoral Dissertation Research: Rural migrant workers and periods of structural change.

博士论文研究：农民工与结构变迁社会学关注的是个体自由意志与社会模式思维方式之间的区别，即所谓的结构-代理问题。本文通过对布迪厄和埃利亚斯关于社会结构与个人意识关系的理论的比较，研究了社会结构与个人意识之间的关系。本文认为，这两种理论都有解释力，但在不同的情况下。该研究网站将允许研究人员调查迁移到城市环境的农村工人如何开始以不同的方式思考问题。这种设置将允许研究人员比较两种理论-一种是布迪厄，认为个人的思想是由他们的社会地位决定的;第二，埃利亚斯的意识观点是在人们的相互联系和互动过程中形成的。 为了研究竞争理论，研究者将对中国的农民工进行实地研究，通过参与式观察和访谈了解他们在非常不同的环境中的思维变化。 这项研究有助于整合两种社会学理论，以及解决有关结构和代理的理论争论。这也有助于拓宽社会学对其他领域如历史学的贡献。因此，两个问题导致了本论文的项目：1）布迪厄和埃利亚斯的机制是如何分别在不同的社会情况下运作的？2)这两种机制如何共同作用，塑造人们的社会现实意识？回答这些问题，使调查的基本结构，代理关系，这是一个核心的社会学关注。这些理论研究是通过对中国农民工的实地研究来进行的，他们是合适的案例，原因有两个。首先，他们作为弱势群体在中国经历了多重统治，这使得研究他们的社会处境意识是富有成果的。第二，当他们迁移成为城市工人时，他们经历了巨大的变化，他们复杂的经历为实证应用布迪厄和埃利亚斯的模型提供了丰富的机会。 研究者将在中国东部的两家工厂进行为期一年的实地调查，包括参与式观察和深度访谈，以收集农民工在日常工作和生活环境中的意识形成数据，并讨论他们如何思考自己的结构状况，将反应与理论模型更紧密地联系起来。 这项拟议中的研究至少在三个方面有可能推动科学知识的发展。首先，它涉及两个重要的社会学理论，努力整合它们。其次，研究可以为阐明社会学核心的社会-机构关系做出重要贡献。第三，作品有能力与社会学以外的学科的文献对话（例如，历史），这也涉及到结构和机构之间的关系。

Doctoral Dissertation Research: Rural migrant workers and periods of structural changeSociology is interested in the distinction between individual free-will and socially-patterned ways of thinking; what is referred to as the structure-agency issue. This dissertation studies the relationship between social structure and individuals' consciousness contrasting two social theorists' (Bourdieu and Elias) theories about this society-individual relationship. This dissertation proposes that both theories have explanatory power but under different circumstances. The research site will allow the researcher to investigate how rural workers who move to urban settings start to think about things differently. This setting will allow the researcher to compare the two theories- one, Bourdieu, that sees individuals' thinking being determined by their social position; second, Elias' views of consciousness as formed in processes of people's interconnection and interactions. To investigate the competing theories, the researcher will conduct a fieldwork study of rural migrant workers in China and, through participant observation and interviews learn how their thinking changes in very different environments. This research contributes to integrating two sociological theories as well as addressing theoretical debates about structure and agency. It also contributes to broadening the contribution of sociology to other fields such as history.Two questions thus lead this dissertation project: 1) How does Bourdieu's and Elias's mechanisms respectively operate in different social situations? 2) How do the two mechanisms co-function to shape people's consciousness of social reality? Answer these questions allows investigation of the fundamental structure-agency relationship that is a core sociological concern. These theoretical inquiries are pursued through a fieldwork study of rural migrant workers in China who are appropriate cases for two reasons. First, they experience multiple dominations as a disadvantaged group in China making it fruitful to study their consciousness of their social situations. Second, as they undergo dramatic changes when migrating to become city workers, their complicated experiences offers a rich opportunity to empirically apply both Bourdieu's and Elias's models. The researcher will conduct one year of fieldwork in two factories in east China, including both participant observation and in-depth interviews to collect data on the migrant workers' consciousness formation in their daily work and life settings and to discuss how they are thinking about their structural situations, linking the responses more tightly to the theoretical models. The proposed research has the potential to advance scientific knowledge in at least three ways. First, it engages two important sociological theories in an effort to integrate them. Second, the research can make important contributions to the efforts at articulating the society-agency relationships that lie at the heart of sociology. Third, the work has the capacity to speak to literatures in disciplines outside of sociology (e.g., history) that are also concerned with relationships between structure and agency.