For those in NYC, please join us at the New School tomorrow, Thursday, Feb 19, 2015 from 18:00-19:30 at the Bark Room [rm 101], 2 West 13th Street, New York.
Author Archives: Mary Ann O'Donnell
what is a natural village?
Important footnote or dissertation? Inquiring minds want to know, what is a natural village? Continue reading
seeking alterity
After we left Tantou, we visited several other scenic spots in Kaihua. Beautifully other to Shenzhen’s clogged roads and noisy crowds, these scenes suggested that the gate to an other worldly adventure was just around the bend in the road or nestled snuggly behind a crumbling wall. And yet. Each time we spoke with local residents, they asserted, “There’s nothing here.” In turn, the visitors from Shenzhen responded that this beauty was enough, but the locals remained skeptical; beautiful enough to bring in tourists? Continue reading
ink painted skies
Impressions of the mountain villages in Tantou Village, Kaihua County and the neighboring, Yutianban Village fields.
tantou: these are not mcmansions
This past week, I joined members of ATU on a research trip to Kaihua County, Zhejiang. ATU is a Shenzhen-based NGO, and their mission is to bring critical attention to architecture and urban planning practices. Most recently, they have decided to intervene in rural development in order to ameliorate the problems of bringing urban planning and its ideologies into rural areas. Continue reading
guangming office: historic questions of translation
Speakers of North American English such as myself often fall into linguistic rabbit holes when reading official Chinese documents. My confusion arises from what both Western Marxists and Chinese Party members might call “historic questions/ problems of translation (翻译的历史问题)”. Thus, although their are semantic overlaps, a city is not a 城市, an office is not a 办公室, a community is not a 社区, and a collective is not a 集体 because the respective geographies of the USA and PRC have been formed through vastly different cultural ecologies and property regimes. Continue reading
cold war guangming
Today, I am trying to figure how to think about a series of historically discrete events that in retrospect clearly aligned the landscapes of Hanoi, Houston, and Shenzhen. Continue reading
star bright dalang: keeping it real
The Star Bright Dalang Singing Competition Finals took place on January 25, 2015. Despite having been abruptly postponed a week (due to government shuffles), nevertheless the production sparkled. Five LED screens adorned the temporary stage in Workers’ Park, a sixth was set up for simultaneous broadcast, lasers beamed through the nighttime sky, and glow wands had been distributed to audience members seated in the front section. The total audience was estimated to be around 3,000 people who gathered to listen to 13 migrant workers sing popular songs a la Idol. Continue reading
CFP: The City and the Margins in Informal Cities and Beyond
Shenzhen fits into this conference on ethnographic explorations of urban margins and liminalities. Any takers?
CFP: The City and the Margins in Informal Cities and Beyond.
INTI shenzhen conference videos inline
In December 2014, the International New Tow Institute hosted the conference, “Shenzhen: From Factory of the World to World City”. Conference videos are now online.
Shenzhen Noted 