Middle-Class Consumers and Creative-Class Producers: RTMs and Their Urban–Rural Mobility

Recently, there has been an important “mobility shift” from the production-focused migration to more diverse forms of consumption-focused mobility. It is important to consider who these individuals are, what motivates them, and whether they are leaving the urban for the rural or constructing hybrid spaces, mobilities, and lifestyles. This chapter examines the nature of urban-rural mobilities in China through the case of RTMs. It demonstrates how the binaries between production and consumption and between urban and rural break down as RTMs are both middle-class consumers and creative-class producers who continually move between urban and rural for personal and professional reasons. In so doing, it nuances our understanding of mobilities within China, the practices and locational choices of creatives, and post-productivist theorizations of rurality.