Wednesday, June 18, 2025 3:30 PM – 5:00 PM Integrative Learning Center ILCN 155
Reshaping Spaces and Rules of Collective Reciprocity: Mechanisms of Information and Communication Technology Application on Farmers’ Participation in Collective Actions in Response to Disasters ——Evidence From a Rural Coastal Border Area in China
in-person
Xiaohan Chen, Yuan Xuan, Qunqi Zeng, and Yiqing Su
School of Public Policy and Management, Guangxi University, Nanning, China
Improving the resilience and adaptive capacity of farmers to disasters is a major challenge for rural areas around the world in the context of climate change. The ability of farmers to participate in collective action in response to disasters (CARD) is directly related to the adaptive capacity of individual farmers to climate change. Existing studies have discussed the impacts of disaster risk governance and information and communication technology (ICT) respectively, but few have introduced the factors of ICT application into the analyses related to disaster governance. Based on the collective action theory, this paper builds a link between the application of ICT and farmers' participation in CARD, and proposes a mechanism path through which the application of ICT can enhance CARD by enhancing social learning. Taking 987 farmers in the border areas of China as the study sample, the analysis results show that, on the one hand, ICT has a significant positive effect on CARD, but this positive effect will be weakened with the increase of the users of ICT; on the other hand, ICT will increase the human capital, financial capital and social capital of farmers by promoting the social learning pathway of the farmers, which will enhance the farmers' willingness to participate in CARD. This paper increases awareness of the new public goods represented by digital space, and provides practical pathways for rural villages in developing countries to cope with the impacts of climate change.
