Platform ruralism: Digital platforms and the techno-spatial fix

Abstract

Digital platforms have grown to exert substantial influence on the society, with increasing attention from scholars across a variety of disciplines. Compared with “platform urbanism” or the “platformization” of cities, how digital platforms entangle rural local society has received less scrutiny. In this article, we focus on “platform ruralism” and place the unfolding of digital platforms in rural areas in the neoliberal globalization process. Building on a series of field studies on rural e-commerce since 2016, we analyze how digital platforms sprawl into the rural local as the “techno-spatial” fix, which involves the construction of local “techno-spatial infrastructures.” Techno-spatial infrastructures revolve around local platform complementors who assemble local networks based on social and economic relations, partly driven by the use of social networking sites and mobile phones. In the meanwhile, local platform complementors also complement conventionally algorithm-based platform mechanisms. We also examine the structural implications of the techno-spatial fix of digital platforms. We contend that it results in the techno-spatial reification of digital platform in the local space. With techno-spatial infrastructures, digital platforms secure new markets by userifying local rural residents into platform users and reorganizing local networks. The local areas witness the centralization of local social and economic networks. The formation of these networks is driven by digital platforms, and these centralized networks are affiliated with digital platforms. This article places digital platforms and communication practices at the center of interrogation in rural China studies. It provides a range of cases to reflect on digital platforms and platform capitalism from the intersection of technology and spatiality.