Digital resilience: A multiple case study of Taobao village in rural China

Abstract

Digital resilience, the ability of a system to respond to external shocks, grow and survive in a changing environment, has become a topic of increasing interest in ICT4D literature. Through the Resilience Assessment Benchmarking and Impact Toolkit (RABIT), the purpose of this article is to conceptualize digital resilience and apply this framework to analyze the Taobao village cases, where some grassroots communities in remote counties leapfrog out of poverty and digital divide, becoming e-commerce entrepreneurs in the context of global Internet mobility. This study first evaluates the performance of foundational and enabling attributes in Southern Jiangxi, Caoxian and Suichang in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is found that the three cases performed well in terms of the foundational attributes, among which Suichang was better than Southern Jiangxi and Caoxian. At the same time, there was a notable difference in terms of enabling attributes. This is reflected in the three distinct grassroots action strategies employed: the “Migratory Bird” strategy, which is flexible but policy-dependent; the “Prism” strategy, which is built on local social networks and flow utilization; and the “Diamond” strategy, leverages high levels of industrial clustering to amplify advantages. Finally, this article offers insights and recommendations for policymakers and practitioners in developing countries and regions, to build a pathway towards digital resilience.