Social Connectedness in Marginal Rural China 281major features and relevant factors influencing the distribution of the HIC in the
marginal areas of Zhidan, with households with high HIC having 78 per cent
higher income than medium HIC, and 400 per cent higher than low HIC house-
holds. In addition, it shows the significant difference of both production input and
output structures amongst various groups.
Household Innovation Circles
Despite great variation, we found that all rural households have their own commu-
nication networks which comprised village kinship (male line, usually in the same
village or distribution in nearby villages), close relatives (mainly extended family
in-laws in outside villages), and friends (including close neighbours within villages
and friends beyond) (Wu et al, 2002). The components, scale and utility of one
household communication network are as follows.
In a remote mountain village (20km from Zhidan county town), with 18 house-
hold residents and three extended families, Mr Zhang (37 years old) is head of a
household of five persons (his wife, two daughters and one son). He reported that
he had four kin in his village including one parent (separated from his household),
two married brothers, and his father’s brother’s son (married as well), which are
important for his family in terms of security, emergency aid (borrowing grain and
cash) and farming experience (his father). Of the other 13 non-family residents in
his village, five were identified by him as close neighbours because they often joined
together for labour exchange. In addition, he had six friends living in neighbouring
villages, whom he met frequently either on his hill plots or in the township market,
in order to discuss a range of issues concerned with production, technology, econ-
omy and other topics. In addition, his family benefits from frequent interaction (at
least 2–3 times per year) with ten of his ‘close relatives’ (e.g. parents-in-law, two
brothers-in-law, three married sisters) in terms of not only a wide source of outside
information but also a potential pool of labour, farming tools and sometimes cash.
Beside these close relatives, he had three kin living in the county town, his father’s
brother and his two sons, one of whom is close to him. As a result, a total of 28
households are members of his household communication network for the purposes
of information and technology exchange, together with social support and security.
There were several findings on the relationship between household communi-
cation networks (HCN) and their innovation capacity. First, there was no differ-
ence between valley, middle and remote villages in terms of the total size of the
HCN. This seems to suggest that the HCN itself is not merely owned by marginal
people but shared by all rural residents. Second, the number of household kin is
not related to the variation of the HIC, which is supported by local opinion that
kinship at present is little help for household production and technology learning,
but may be useful for livelihood security, particularly in borrowing grain or cash to
cope with unexpected events. Finally, in addition to kin living in the same or