I love this! I immediately thought about your Django project, which I see as a part of this trend.
It's interesting how the meaning of shanzhai has turned: "Once a term used to suggest something cheap or inferior, shanzhai now suggests to many a certain Chinese cleverness and ingenuity." I'm not sure "pirate" has the same potential. But I do think that "shanzhai" provides a story that connects and inspires people involved. Names emerge organically, but I'm curious as to how similar Make-culture initiatives will be called in different places.
A little off topic but Keith Hart's new post The political economy of urbanization in contemporary Africa widens the perspective for this open-source economic activity--I'm not sure what to call it, as I think Shanzhai is but one variant of a more widespread trend.
Hart's piece is interesting from so many directions. It seemed particularly useful to round out John Robb's Global Guerrillas.
One point stood out:
"Most economists have approached the informal economy in quantitative terms as a sector of small-scale, low-productivity, low-income activities without benefit of advanced machines, whereas I stress the reliability of income streams and the presence or absence of bureaucratic *form*.
3 comments:
I love this! I immediately thought about your Django project, which I see as a part of this trend.
It's interesting how the meaning of shanzhai has turned: "Once a term used to suggest something cheap or inferior, shanzhai now suggests to many a certain Chinese cleverness and ingenuity." I'm not sure "pirate" has the same potential. But I do think that "shanzhai" provides a story that connects and inspires people involved. Names emerge organically, but I'm curious as to how similar Make-culture initiatives will be called in different places.
A little off topic but Keith Hart's new post The political economy of urbanization in contemporary Africa widens the perspective for this open-source economic activity--I'm not sure what to call it, as I think Shanzhai is but one variant of a more widespread trend.
Hart's piece is interesting from so many directions. It seemed particularly useful to round out John Robb's Global Guerrillas.
One point stood out:
"Most economists have approached the informal economy in quantitative terms as a sector of small-scale, low-productivity, low-income activities without benefit of advanced machines, whereas I stress the reliability of income streams and the presence or absence of bureaucratic *form*.
Thanks for the comments as always.
And that Keith Hart is very interesting.
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