Making the Future with the Nonhuman:Shenzhen, the Greater Bay, and “Made in China Intelligently”

This essay examines two interconnected human-made nonhuman entities stemming from Shenzhen, China’s first special economic zone, that have become dominant figures in mapping the city’s – and by extension, China’s – future: the robot and the drone. I bring an interdisciplinary, cultural studies appro...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:China perspectives 2023-01 (135), p.9-16
Main Author: Yang, Fan
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Actors
Artificial intelligence
Aspiration
Cultural studies
Ethnography
Forecasting
Future
Graphic novels
Human factors
Humans
Interdisciplinary aspects
Mapping
Power
Robotics
Robots
Science fiction & fantasy
Science fiction, Chinese
Technological innovations
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Description
Summary:This essay examines two interconnected human-made nonhuman entities stemming from Shenzhen, China’s first special economic zone, that have become dominant figures in mapping the city’s – and by extension, China’s – future: the robot and the drone. I bring an interdisciplinary, cultural studies approach to the multiple meaning-making practices that engage with these two objects; both participate in enacting the vision for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area as an extension of the success of Shenzhen. These practices simultaneously normalise aspirations for a future fuelled by the power of nonhuman technological agents while offering glimpses into the uneven power relations between different humans that underpin such future making. At the same time, they also point to the emergent possibilities of meaning-making that conjoin the human and the nonhuman.
ISSN:2070-3449
1996-4617
DOI:10.4000/chinaperspectives.15999