Making space for reading : a study of rural reading rooms in Yunnan Province, PRC

Abstract: This thesis aims to explore the meanings behind rural reading rooms (tushushi) in Yunnan Province, PRC. Rural reading rooms are small libraries attached to the village Party compound in Chinese villages; for the past decade 600 000 reading rooms have been established in administrative villages in China, and now benefit more than 1 billion farmers in what is arguably the world’s most important developing nation. These reading rooms could potentially provide reading- and information spaces in villages where these have been lacking. They could be described as a major development project carried out by the state in an attempt to modernise rural regions. Reading rooms are part of the attempt to build what is labelled “a new socialist countryside” in the PRC, a major national policy package designed to modernise rural regions that have been central to central state planning on rural regions since the 11th 5-year Plan was presented in 2006.This thesis aims to explore the relation between state policy and local reality in relation to reading rooms; to what extent are reading rooms part of local life, and how can we understand the functions of reading rooms? Are they just part of state blueprints for rural regions or do they carry communal value? The thesis is based on extensive fieldwork in Yunnan Province, and follows an ethnographic approach, where grounded theory has been used both during fieldwork and the writing process. Reading rooms have been positioned within governmentality theory as away of shedding light on the usage and meaning of educational spaces within villages; as state projects with ideological underpinnings that needs to be understood both in relation to the state, and local realities.