The increasing mobility of agricultural production prompts researchers to reconsider the scope of fieldwork. Photo: VCG

Agriculture has traditionally been regarded as a form of production tied to place. With the emergence of cross-regional agri-food systems, however, agricultural production has become increasingly mobile. Although production itself must still take place in a particular location, the capital and labor on which it depends move and are coordinated across regions. As agricultural production becomes increasingly mobile, does fieldwork confined to a single location remain viable? I argue that fieldwork in agricultural sociology should extend beyond individual sites, tracing substantive connections through multi-sited ethnography.

First, a cross-regional perspective is essential to understanding the organization of agricultural production. In agricultural sociology, production sites and the villages in which they are located are natural starting points for fieldwork. For crops grown primarily for the market, such as vegetables and fruit, however, understanding production practices requires researchers to extend their fieldwork beyond these sites, following market links through to consumer markets.

In practice, distributors’ requirements for a stable supply and consistent quality are transmitted along the market chain to production bases, directly shaping planting plans, harvesting schedules, grading and packaging procedures, and the corresponding labor arrangements. If research is confined to production bases, these requirements and arrangements may be mistaken for mere management preferences of agricultural operators. Their close connections with distant consumer markets—and the substantial influence of those connections on production practices—can easily be overlooked.

More importantly, extending the scope of fieldwork to consumer markets helps reveal the structural connections between different production sites. In industries such as vegetable and fruit production and abalone farming, a single business operator often establishes production bases in suitable regions in both northern and southern China, alternating production between the two as the seasons change to manage seasonal constraints and market risks. Operational arrangements at one site are therefore closely linked to those at the other.

Second, understanding agricultural labor practices requires moving beyond the production site. Labor practices are central to agricultural sociology, particularly as agricultural operations in China grow in scale. When I first investigated agricultural labor practices, I naturally focused on production sites, where I could observe the entire labor process. As my research progressed, however, I came to recognize the limits of this approach. Important as on-site labor management and interactions between employers and workers are, they cannot fully explain agricultural labor practices, particularly questions of labor supply, workforce stability, and migration. I therefore extended my fieldwork to workers’ home communities and traced their migration journeys.

Fieldwork in workers’ home communities showed me that understanding labor migration requires a closer look at household arrangements. Whether workers can leave home to work elsewhere and when they return depend not only on wages and working conditions but also on the distribution of caregiving duties and production responsibilities within the family. Workers are often able to migrate for work because family members take on these responsibilities in their absence. Focusing exclusively on production sites risks overlooking those who stay behind and make migration possible, as well as those not currently working away from home. Researchers must therefore conduct fieldwork in workers’ home communities and include both groups in their investigations.

Third, researchers should remain methodologically reflexive as they expand the scope of their fieldwork. Multi-sited ethnography can help agricultural sociologists better understand how the organization of production and labor practices function and change. A relational perspective can thus offer a fuller understanding of the social processes underlying China’s agricultural transformation. This approach nevertheless requires careful reflection on methodological choices. An emphasis on multi-sited ethnography does not mean abandoning sustained fieldwork at a single site. And although tracing connections is central to multi-sited ethnography, researchers should avoid overstating the continuity of social processes and overlooking the ruptures and changes within them.

The increasing mobility of agricultural production prompts researchers to reconsider the scope of fieldwork. Combining sustained fieldwork at individual sites with cross-regional tracing allows agricultural sociologists to examine how consumer markets, production sites, workers’ home communities, and migration processes are connected—and where those connections break down or change. Such multi-sited ethnographic work can provide a fuller understanding of the social processes underlying China’s agricultural transformation.

Chen Hangying is an associate professor from the School of Philosophy at Shaanxi Normal University.