On self-reliant masculinities and rural returnees in ethnic China

The shift in China’s national economy from industrial manufacturing to technology and IT has placed constraints on the lives of rural-to-urban male migrant workers from the lower social strata. As the pace of out-migration in China slows, male rural returnees are harnessing self-reliant masculinities to reclaim status and heighten a sense of collective pride in and affiliation with their natal village. Centering on two ethnographic case studies of Dong ethnic minority male rural returnees in the autonomous district of Guizhou Province, the analysis in this article contributes to critique on the recent unfolding of the state-led “crisis of masculinity” to highlight the wider socioeconomic conditions that continue to deepen the inequalities and felt anxieties of male rural returnees.