Rationality-Driven Cultural Adaptation After Involuntary Resettlement: A 25-Year Study of Three Gorges Migrants in Rural China

Social sustainability is central to resettlement induced by development. However, the long-term dynamics of cultural change among involuntary resettlers remain underexplored. This paper draws on a 25-year longitudinal ethnographic study of Three Gorges Dam migrants relocated to rural Anhui, China (2000–2025), including participant observation, archival research and in-depth interviews with 22 households. It also examines how cultural adaptation, rupture and continuity unfold over extended time horizons. A rationality-driven analytical framework is used. Three coexisting modalities of cultural change are identified. They are adaptations in livelihood strategies and household labor divisions, rupture via the abandonment of low-return farming and distant kinship ties, and continuity in dialect, cuisine, funerary rituals and close kinship. This paper demonstrates that these modalities are selectively mobilized by three interacting rationalities: survival (ensuring subsistence security), economic (maximizing material returns) and social rationalities (upholding identity and moral obligations). When these rationalities are in conflict, survival rationality commands the highest priority, while social rationality retains veto power in identity-defining domains. In the long run, this leads to a stable pattern of “segmented acculturation”, which involves separation in social interactions, assimilation in economic spheres and cultural distinctiveness in identity-relevant domains. These findings reconceptualize cultural change as an agency-driven process of strategic selection and offer policy guidance for the long-term governance of resettlement communities.