Made in China Journal
Articles about Made in China Journal
Homesick Nation: A Conversation with Linda Qian
Linda Qian’s Homesick Nation: Development, Migration and Yearning in Rural China (Cambridge University Press, 2026) examines rural development in contemporary China through the lens of 乡愁 xiangchou, a concept connoting homesickness and rural nostalgia. Centred on Heyang, a heritage village in Zhejiang, the book employs hometown ethnography to trace the complex return flows of people,
Agricultural Drones: Material Afterlives of Mao’s Green Revolution
The four propellers begin to spin. A gust of wind presses down the surrounding rice plants as a pulsing rotor-whir fills the air. The drone, carrying its battery and a tank of pesticides, lifts off and stabilises, hovering briefly before angling towards the fields. It accelerates over the paddies, the air beneath it flattening the
Episode 12 | Entrapped by E-Commerce
Life before e-commerce can feel like a foreign country. For the ‘Chinamaxxing’ crowd, fresh meals and fancy gadgets delivered to your doorstep almost instantly, at astonishingly low prices, are among the country’s top draws. Yet these conveniences come with hidden costs, and China’s path to becoming an e-commerce giant has been far from certain. How
China’s Approach to AI: Infrastructural Statecraft, Managed Pluralism
China’s artificial intelligence (AI) trajectory is often characterised as ‘frugal innovation’ (Waters 2025), ‘self-reliance’ (Wang et al. 2025), or a state-controlled approach to innovation and diffusion (Roberts et al. 2021). Many observers have focused on China’s AI policy and regulatory approach, portraying it as ‘vertical’ (as opposed to the ‘horizontal approach’ of the European Union’s
Making Transnational Ballroom in China
Ballroom culture emerged in Black and Latinx communities in the United States in the twentieth century as drag balls (Jones 2017). In the middle of the century, it developed into a comprehensive system of competitive balls between ‘houses’ competing to win category prizes such as best makeup, best runway, and for a dancing style known