The Relationship Between Legal Knowledge and Villagers’ Preferences for Customary Farmland Reallocation: A Case Study of Village X in the North China Plain

Abstract The persistence of customary land use practices is a significant focus in the sociology of law. This paper examines this issue by analysing the ongoing practice of farmland reallocation in rural China, where villages periodically reallocate farmland based on household size. Although the Rural Land Contract Law (RLCL) prohibits this practice and emphasizes the protection of farmers’ property rights, it continues to persist. Research has found that village elites who are well versed in the RLCL often maintain this practice by exploiting legal exceptions. However, for this practice to continue, it requires the support of ordinary farmers, making their legal knowledge crucial. Based on this, the paper hypothesizes that the practice persists because legal knowledge has not yet widely spread among farmers. While this hypothesis was not confirmed through the survey, the findings suggest that state law remains distant from ordinary farmers, almost as if it is irrelevant to them.