Making, New Shanzhai and Countercultural Values: Ethnographies of Contemporary, Innovative and Entrepreneurial Digital Fabrication Communities in Shenzhen, China

Mutibwa, Daniel H.; Xia, Bingqing

Abstract

It is approaching ten years since making and the Maker Movement are said to have reached China. During that time, making has been framed variously and associated with aspirations and values emerging from the international countercultural struggles spanning the late 1950s to the late 1970s. In this chapter, we explore the extent to which the framings of making are discernible in, and reflective of, countercultural values in the Chinese context—with a particular
focus on the city of Shenzhen. To guide our exploration, we ask:
1. What does making in Shenzhen reveal about the identities and
composition of its digital fabrication communities?
2. In which ways do the aspirations and motivations of these communities
reflect countercultural values?
3. Where countercultural values are discernible, how are they reconciled with entrepreneurial motivations and institutional agendas in an effort to achieve change (broadly defined)?

Citation

Mutibwa, D. H., & Xia, B. (2022). Making, New Shanzhai and Countercultural Values: Ethnographies of Contemporary, Innovative and Entrepreneurial Digital Fabrication Communities in Shenzhen, China. In R. Hoyng, & G. Chong (Eds.), Critiquing Communication Innovation: New Media in a Multipolar World (81-113). Michigan State University Press

• Publication Date: 2022-06
• Deposit Date: Feb 15, 2025
• Publisher: Michigan State University Press
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Pages: 81-113
• Series Title: US–China Relations in the Age of Globalization
• Book Title: Critiquing Communication Innovation: New Media in a Multipolar World
• ISBN: 9781611864298
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/45403677
• Publisher URL: https://msupress.org/9781611864298/critiquing-communication-innovation/