ABSTRACT
Rural poverty is one of China's greatest challenges. Social workers initiated an action research project in 2005 with an ethnic-minority community in Yunnan province. This chapter describes the dilemma of China's rural development and introduces the project's theoretical perspective. It demonstrates how the project invigorated community participation and facilitated rural social work. The chapter deals with an action research pilot project that grew out of the 2001 collaboration. Unfortunately, development has created unrealistic expectations, inequalities, social exclusion, and a crisis in cultural identity. Despite rural reforms, China's rapid integration into the global capitalist economy and environmental devastation have made the rural poor more vulnerable. The project seeks to preserve cultural artefacts and to enable women to produce traditional products for market consumption. It also aims to build women's capacities, enhance their income, promote a new form of collectivism, protect the traditional culture of the Zhuang ethnic minority, and strengthen local cultural identity and confidence.
