Abstract: Based on the specific practice of the new county sages in Y town participating in rural governance, the action logic of the new county sages was elaborated from three aspects of functional embeddedness, resource embeddedness and relationship embeddedness. Corresponding to the logic of action, the difficulties encountered by the new county sages in Y town in the process of participating in the village governance was expounded, and a deep analysis of the reasons was made based on the embedded perspective and combined with relevant theories. The study found that the main reasons for the difficulties faced by the new county sages in rural governance were the lack of institutions based on functional embeddedness, the alienation of behavior based on resource embeddedness, and the cultural restrictions based on relational embeddedness. It also expounded the relief path for new county sages in Y town to participate in rural governance.

Key words: embedding theory, new county sages, rural governance, Y town