A vivid look at China’s shifting place in the global political economy of technology production
How did China’s mass manufacturing and “copycat” production become transformed, in the global tech imagination, from something holding the nation back to one of its key assets? Prototype Nation offers a rich transnational analysis of how the promise of democratized innovation and entrepreneurial life has shaped China’s governance and global image. With historical precision and ethnographic detail, Silvia Lindtner reveals how a growing distrust in Western models of progress and development, including Silicon Valley and the tech industry after the financial crisis of 2007–08, shaped the rise of the global maker movement and the vision of China as a “new frontier” of innovation.
Lindtner’s investigations draw on more than a decade of research in experimental work spaces—makerspaces, coworking spaces, innovation hubs, hackathons, and startup weekends—in China, the United States, Africa, Europe, Taiwan, and Singapore, as well as in key sites of technology investment and industrial production—tech incubators, corporate offices, and factories. She examines how the ideals of the maker movement, to intervene in social and economic structures, served the technopolitical project of prototyping a “new” optimistic, assertive, and global China. In doing so, Lindtner demonstrates that entrepreneurial living influences governance, education, policy, investment, and urban redesign in ways that normalize the persistence of sexism, racism, colonialism, and labor exploitation.
Prototype Nation shows that by attending to the bodies and sites that nurture entrepreneurial life, technology can be extricated from the seemingly endless cycle of promise and violence.
Cover image: Courtesy of Cao Fei, Vitamin Creative Space and Sprüth Magers
1 有用 宇宙尽头小卖部 2022-05-15 22:17:48
田野材料完全无法支撑理论野心。后殖民和新自由主义双线并进的分析路径很新颖,但是对深圳的讲述如果大部分是来源于政策而在田野材料中嫌少体现这是是不是分析方法上的另一种“西方凝视”?而且这本书真的是关于深圳的吗,感觉仅仅是讲述了孵化器里的故事,那这么看题目也很是有欺骗性。
0 有用 半人馬的Z 2024-04-28 14:08:20 美国
A very well-written text. Hope to keep revisiting this book. Thought-provoking.
0 有用 豆丁仔 2021-01-30 21:53:01
套的后殖民理论引人深思,但实在受不了学术写作的冗余。费尽耐心看了大半。
0 有用 越洋鲫鱼 2023-11-11 13:21:51 美国
很喜欢,先讲了一个深圳的技术理想主义者是如何被资本收编的好故事,然后跳出来说这个故事是错的因为这些看起来是反文化精英的人本身也在复制不平等,越看到后面越上头,一口气看完了,前面几章看得大皱眉头,后面越讲思路越清楚。
3 有用 溪山 2022-11-13 23:18:55 浙江
其实作者不妨拿浙大举例子的,各种创,就差大卡车创了
0 有用 棱镜 2024-05-07 23:03:23 广东
在回应理论上亮点很多,但是由于没有给到本地足够的历史眼光,导致材料的逻辑的削弱。创客的蓬勃(创客在那两年的投资热之后有多少真正商业转化可能也是个问号)和李访问柴火之间的关系真的有那么强吗?承认国家在场的作用,那为什么要用对行政合法性有消解性的后殖民视角?同样因为缺乏历史视角,所以把相对暴力描述得更为绝对化,而这一样削弱了本地主体性的一面。一个实际管理人口达到两千万的城市,不是这样的批评就可以理解它... 在回应理论上亮点很多,但是由于没有给到本地足够的历史眼光,导致材料的逻辑的削弱。创客的蓬勃(创客在那两年的投资热之后有多少真正商业转化可能也是个问号)和李访问柴火之间的关系真的有那么强吗?承认国家在场的作用,那为什么要用对行政合法性有消解性的后殖民视角?同样因为缺乏历史视角,所以把相对暴力描述得更为绝对化,而这一样削弱了本地主体性的一面。一个实际管理人口达到两千万的城市,不是这样的批评就可以理解它的可持续性的。 (展开)
0 有用 半人馬的Z 2024-04-28 14:08:20 美国
A very well-written text. Hope to keep revisiting this book. Thought-provoking.
1 有用 达伦终结者 2024-03-29 01:33:32 美国
人类学家还是要学习一点政治
0 有用 周北冥 2024-03-27 05:08:34 美国
会不会有点太夸大新自由主义话术的忽悠能力了?咱们湖南人去深圳打工纯纯为了钱的。。
0 有用 薯町 2024-03-07 12:15:05 中国香港
A prototype China studies writer. 三流的问题意识。时常读读, 提醒自己不要把(后)殖民写成这个样子。