Living in a City, Living a Rural Life

Abstract

Rural-urban migrants (mingongs) provide crucial labor for China’s economic growth and global supply chains. Today, second generation mingongs who have spent most of their lives in cities have grown up. However, we know little about if their experiences with technologies are similar to their “urban-native” peers. This study reports on a qualitative study in a community in Beijing. We found a new type of “rurality”: second generation mingongs’ experiences with technologies differed from their urban-native peers in nearly every aspect, but exhibited similarities with their peers in rural areas. Taking nostalgia and memory as theoretical lenses, we demonstrate that such a “rurality” could be a coping mechanism for mingongs’ identity struggles. Our work contributed to HCI and CSCW literature by identifying the existence of a new type of “rurality.” That is, although residing in the city for nearly almost all of their lives, these second generation mingongs experiences greatly differed from their urban-native peers while exhibiting certain similarities with people living in rural areas.