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- Convenors:
-
Yichen Rao
(Utrecht University)
Carwyn Morris (Leiden Institute of Area Studies)
Send message to Convenors
- Chairs:
-
Carwyn Morris
(Leiden Institute of Area Studies)
Yichen Rao (Utrecht University)
- Discussant:
-
Carwyn Morris
(Leiden Institute of Area Studies)
- Format:
- Traditional Open Panel
- Location:
- NU-4B43
- Sessions:
- Friday 19 July, -
Time zone: Europe/Amsterdam
Short Abstract:
This panel aims to delve into the multifaceted social impacts arising from the recent surge of Chinese digital capital, critically examining their implications for global societies, economies, and cultures.
Long Abstract:
In the contemporary global landscape, the proliferation of Chinese digital capital has emerged as a defining force, reshaping the dynamics of power, influence, and connectivity on a worldwide scale, and becoming a new element of global China. This panel aims to delve into the multifaceted social impacts arising from the recent surge of Chinese digital capital, critically examining their implications for global societies, economies, and cultures.
Focusing on the intricate interplay between technological advancements, socio-cultural norms, and geopolitical implications, this panel seeks to unravel the complex ways in which Chinese digital capital has interacted with international political agenda regarding data, infrastructure and other critical resources as well as the intimate, moral dynamics in global users’ daily encounters with Chinese-made digital applications, devices, platforms, and services. Through a critical exploration of the encounters posed by the reach of these digital entities, we aim to foster a nuanced understanding of the broader implications of the market-driven globalization of Chinese digital capital in areas including but not limited to labor, popular culture and gaming, social media, restaurant culture, and finance.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Friday 19 July, 2024, -Paper short abstract:
This paper focuses on the social side of Chinese fibre optic networks in Switzerland. It ethnographically explores how representatives of Chinese Information & Communication Technology firms and their Swiss partners navigate public concerns, emphasising Swissness and envisioning high-tech futures.
Paper long abstract:
This paper focuses on a particularly contested case of Chinese digital capital—Chinese fibre optic networks in Switzerland—and the involvement of both Chinese and Swiss companies. In Switzerland, as elsewhere, Chinese technologies play a pivotal role in these networks. Despite Switzerland generally being more receptive to incorporating Chinese technologies compared to other Western countries, there is a growing scepticism within the Swiss public regarding potential future dependencies and cybersecurity concerns. This paper is based on ethnographic field research in Switzerland, including interviews with representatives of Chinese companies in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector and their Swiss partner companies, participant observation during industry events and data centre visits, and documentary analysis. By emphasizing the everyday, social aspects of digital infrastructures, it asks how Chinese and Swiss company representatives navigate these public concerns. I demonstrate how, in an increasingly tense geopolitical setting, they attempt to disassociate these technologies from their Chineseness. This is reinforced by employing European workers who advocate for the company, presenting their companies as European and highlighting their Swissness. Meanwhile, Swiss partners often conceal their Chinese collaborations and technologies. Moreover, company representatives present their technologies as future-proof, promising an ever more digital and automated era, necessary for sustained innovation and economic power. These presentations are framed around narratives envisioning a sustainable and green high-tech future for all.
Paper short abstract:
Drawing on my fieldwork exploring consumption choices among Mandarin-language platform users in Vancouver, Canada, this paper examines the tension between individuals who have brought their Chinese digital capital overseas and platforms that intend to capitalize on such capital outside China.
Paper long abstract:
This paper explores the reactions of emigrant users to Mandarin-language platforms in their host country, examining the implications when individuals with Chinese digital capital encounter platforms seeking to exploit it beyond the Chinese market. It draws on my year-long dissertation fieldwork in Vancouver, Canada, where I utilized interviews, observation, and digital ethnography to understand the intricate dynamics of Mandarin-language platform utilization, work engagement, and entrepreneurial endeavours. Vancouver's landscape provides a rich tapestry of Mandarin-language platforms catering to the diverse needs of emigrants, spanning from take-out services to urban mobility solutions. Entrepreneurs and investors, inspired by the successes of similar platforms in China, seek to replicate this triumph in the relatively untapped Canadian market. However, findings suggest these attempts may face unexpected challenges. While emigrant users initially rely on Mandarin-language platforms upon arrival, their dependence gradually wanes as they adapt to their new environment. Interviews and observations reveal a shift in perceptions and lifestyles, with users developing skepticism towards these platforms, influenced by negative stereotypes rooted in the business strategies employed by Mandarin-language platforms in Canada, which they associate with unfavourable tactics and ethics they found in platform companies in China. In summary, this research illuminates the complexities of transplanting Chinese platform models abroad, underscoring the evolving dynamics between emigrant users and Mandarin-language platforms in their new societal context.
Paper short abstract:
It discusses how Chinese digital entrepreneurs see themselves as 'time travellers" in Southeast Asian market. By adapting the predatory "cash loan" models and credit algorithms that once worked in China , they achieve certain temporal agencies in Southeast Asian market.
Paper long abstract:
Starting in 2017, Chinese fintech companies began introducing a specific digital loan product to the Southeast Asian market. Known as "cash loans," the product is an unsecured payday loan with data-driven instant approval, digital money transfers, and predatory interest rates and collections. Once popular and lucrative in China before heavy regulation in 2017, the model has been characterized by Chinese media as a "debt scam" that manipulates people and causes individual over-indebtedness. Based on ethnographic data, I trace how Chinese entrepreneurs reproduce cash loans in Indonesia and other Southeast Asian countries with specific temporal ideologies. On the one hand, based on their experiences in the Chinese digital market, they believe that Indonesia today is just like China ten years ago in terms of infrastructure and regulations. They feel like "time travelers" who can use their memories to reproduce market success by copying models that worked for infrastructures and regulatory environments in China. On the other hand, they are adapting certain temporal-spatial logics for algorithmic risk assessment that have been well tested in China's fintech market. The credit apps monitor borrowers' smartphone behavior to capture temporal data. The data feeds algorithmic models that generate credit scores for people with no recorded financial history. I use "China time machines" to describe the devices that assemble different temporal-spatial ideologies in the trans-Asian market-making of Chinese digital capital. Chinese digital capital has become a defining force in the global South through the rapid circulation of "China time machines" in underdeveloped and under-regulated digital markets.