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Chapter 6 moves to the third type of place examined in this book, the rural edge of the metropolitan region, where the influence of the metropolitan government gives way to low‐ranking township governments exercising informal power over rural land. Acting as power and property brokers between the state bureaucracy and peasants, township leaders try to avoid scrutiny from above while intensifying downward control over village land to develop illegal industrial, commercial, and residential projects. Townships' power and property brokerage is exemplified by their issuing of homeownership certificates that attract buyers of affordable homes but are not recognized by the state. Townships' limited formal power is secured through construction projects and expanded through the operation of the black market for property.

This chapter examines how Chinese village women campaigned and embodied state initiatives in a localized, even personalized way. It describes the situation of women against the backdrop of the national land reform campaign and the formation of mutual aid groups in the early 1950s and examines state attempts to develop local village leadership by assigning cadres. It explores the interaction between local women and young urban women organizers who conducted house-to-house mobilization of women while contending with their own problems of children left behind in the cities.

This chapter deals with the village known as Kanuba (pseudonym). It is one of several villages that Egyptian Nubians established below Aswan in the Nile Valley as a result of the inundation of their lands when the first Aswan Dam was twice raised, in 1912 and 1933. Following the inundation of this land, the remaining Nubians moved in 1964 to a new site. They are now settled on recently reclaimed lands in the Kom Ombo area. In their new location, which has become known as “New Nubia”, Nubians have been provided with schools, health facilities, agricultural services, and a greater opportunity to become part of the larger Egyptian society. The contrasts between Kanuba and the New Nubian villages should help to pinpoint indices to be used in identifying the termination of the transitional period that follows mass population movements.

Chapter Two examines the changing dynamics between township government and village communities, paying special attention to the relationship between township and village leaders. Using interviews with village leaders, township officials, and local villagers, the chapter highlights the complexity of interests that connect the village and township. It reveals the strategies that township leaders use to secure the cooperation of village leaders. The chapter also shows how township and village leaders sometimes collude to extract spoils from the state at the expense of villagers. The chapter highlights the role of personal networks in village-township relations, and how village-based kinship rivalries play out within the township government and vice versa. The chapter also examines power relations within the township governments, offering new insights into the balance of power between the head of township government and the township Party secretary.

Some 91 leaders, both original inhabitants and immigrants, were interviewed using a standard questionnaire over a period of nine months in 1969. There were clear differences between village-based leaders and those representing immigrant groups. The gulf between the two kinds of leaders resulted from a colonial policy of granting political access to village representatives and their Rural Committee, which continued in a context that was industrial and much changed from the immediate post-war world when the system of access to government had been created. The gulf between the two populations suggested a need for political change. The ability to mobilize both groups and cooperate for political action was marked by a dispute and its resolution when changes were made to ferry schedules from Hong Kong to Tsuen Wan.