Making with Shenzhen (Characteristics)—Strategy and Everyday Tactics in a City’s Creative Turn

Siyu Chen,Jian Lin

doi:10.3390/su13094923

Abstract

This paper investigates the government-led maker movement in Shenzhen, China by deploying Michel de Certeau’s concepts of “strategy” and “tactics”. While there is a growing body of literature surrounding the maker movement, the discrepancy between the maker movement presented in urban policies and its participants’ actual practices is underexplored. Situating the exploration in the Chinese context, this article looks into how state intervention shapes the maker movement and actors’ participation. This work starts with considerations of political economy to demonstrate how the “Make with Shenzhen” campaign as a strategy fits into the government’s creative city agenda. It then draws upon the findings of a longitudinal ethnographic study to illuminate how discourses, institutions and apparatuses are tactically appropriated by individuals to mobilize symbolic, monetary, social and political resources to serve their interests. We argue that these tactical practices can potentially lead to meaningful changes in the city of Shenzhen and the everyday life of its people. By juxtaposing the strategy of the “Make with Shenzhen” campaign with the tactical practices surrounding it, this study offers insight into the challenges and possibilities brought about by the city-wide learning and making in the Chinese context.

Highlights

In 2015, maker culture in Shenzhen, China rose to prominence when the Chinese government issued a new national policy aimed at the promotion of “mass makerspaces”, “mass entrepreneurship” and “mass innovation”
We argue that a rethink of the “Make with Shenzhen” campaign can shed light on the challenges and opportunities of the maker movement in the Chinese context
We will first analyze the political economy of Shenzhen’s maker movement, explicating the way that the “Make with Shenzhen” campaign as a strategy fits into the official agenda of the creative city and urban regeneration

Summary

Introduction

Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Other scholars have investigated the political implications of the Chinese maker movement with a focus on topics such as space, participation and community [15,16,17,18,19] As illuminating as these studies are, there has been little research conducted on the discrepancy between the maker movement as it is presented in urban policies and the reality of its participants’ actual practices. By examining how the government-led campaign informs the citizenry of Shenzhen, and how the city-wide learning and making, in turn, lead to the changing contours of the maker movement in the Chinese context, this study further contributes insights to the relevant literature by exploring the power interplay between government, market forces and the public

Theoretical Framework and Methods

Field Findings

Tactical Practices in “Make with Shenzhen”

Contested Makerspaces

Making with Different Ends

Discussion and Conclusions