Learning from Shenzhen
China's Post-Mao Experiment from Special Zone to Model City
This multidisciplinary volume, the first of its kind, presents an account of China's contemporary transformation via one of its most important yet overlooked cities: Shenzhen, located just north of Hong Kong. In recent decades, Shenzhen has transformed from an experimental site for economic reform into a dominant city at the crossroads of the global economy. The first of China's special economic zones, Shenzhen is today a UNESCO City of Design and the hub of China's emerging technology industries. Bringing China studies into dialogue with urban studies, the contributors explore how the post-Mao Chinese appropriation of capitalist logic led to a dramatic remodeling of the Chinese city and collective life in China today. These essays show how urban villages and informal institutions enabled social transformation through cases of public health, labor, architecture, gender, politics, education, and more. Offering scholars and general readers alike an unprecedented look at one of the world's most dynamic metropolises, this collective history uses the urban case study to explore critical problems and possibilities relevant for modern-day China and beyond.
About the Author
Mary Ann O'Donnell is an independent artist-ethnographer and co-founder of the Handshake 302 Art Space in Shenzhen.
Winnie Won Yin Wong is assistant professor of rhetoric and history of art at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of "Van Gogh on Demand: China and the Readymade", also published by the University of Chicago Press.
Jonathan Bach is associate professor and chair of global studies at the New School in New York. He is the author of "Between Sovereignty and Integration: German Foreign Policy and National Identity after 1989".
Reviews
"Shenzhen is an extraordinary city, but until now, surprisingly little had been written about it. This book, which traces the story of Shenzhen from its late 1970s beginnings to its subsequent explosive growth into the present, fills that void. These chapters clearly and eloquently depict the 'Shenzhen Miracle' in its successes – and also its considerable human costs. Anyone who reads this volume, whether social scientist or interested layperson, will come to see Shenzhen in an altogether new light" – Gordon Mathews, Chinese University of Hong Kong
"Fluidly combining historical, ethnographic, geographic, humanities, and policy research approaches, this is much more than a study of the history and contemporary life of one city. Especially emphasizing the place of Shenzhen as model and anti-model in China's marked turn toward urbanization, these essays sensitively explore the irreducible complexity of a Special Economic Zone turned futuristic urban exemplar. Clearly in conversation with each other, the contributors offer fresh theories and methods for engaging in critical scholarship on cities anywhere. This volume is a model of how to study the global contemporary moment with its burgeoning economic centers, mobile populations, and recurring crises" – Judith Farquhar, University of Chicago
