If You Are the One, the most watched dating show in China, caused a heated public debate following its debut in 2010, resulting in two government notices being issued regarding the regulation of dating shows. Using textual and intertextual analysis of the show and the public debate surrounding it, this article scrutinizes the transformation, following government regulation, of the construction of masculinity on the show. Drawing on Lisa Rofel’s narrative of “desiring China” and Robert P. Weller’s concept of “responsive authoritarianism,” this article shows how the tension between the market logic of the Chinese media and their political ownership is played out through the negotiation and mobilization of the meaning of gender. This article therefore also sheds light on larger political, economic, and sociocultural configurations in contemporary China.

While studies on Chinese social influencers are proliferating, the dynamics of emerging elite influencers remain underexplored. Through a Bourdieusian lens, we explore how “Ivy League girls”—a group of female Chinese influencers from elite backgrounds studying at prestigious Western universities—curate their online personae by showcasing balanced aspirations on RedNote, a popular social media and e-commerce platform in China. Drawing on digital ethnography, we examine how these privileged influencers mobilize various forms of identity capital to navigate the tensions between class, gender, and nation through careful negotiations of glamour and grit, Chineseness and cosmopolitanism, and empowerment and conformity. These balanced performances reveal the constraints imposed by China’s market-state complex in the digital era and their agency in navigating cultural tensions in self-representations. Through the lens of aspiration, we offer critical insights into how the changing mechanism of social distinction shape the self-branding strategies of elite influencers within an attention-driven, globalized economy. Analyzing how elite influencers leverage their diverse portfolio of resources, this study advances our understanding of the reproduction of privilege in the digital sphere and beyond.

This paper investigates the government-led maker movement in Shenzhen, China by deploying Michel de Certeau’s concepts of “strategy” and “tactics”. While there is a growing body of literature surrounding the maker movement, the discrepancy between the maker movement presented in urban policies and its participants’ actual practices is underexplored. Situating the exploration in the Chinese context, this article looks into how state intervention shapes the maker movement and actors’ participation. This work starts with considerations of political economy to demonstrate how the “Make with Shenzhen” campaign as a strategy fits into the government’s creative city agenda. It then draws upon the findings of a longitudinal ethnographic study to illuminate how discourses, institutions and apparatuses are tactically appropriated by individuals to mobilize symbolic, monetary, social and political resources to serve their interests. We argue that these tactical practices can potentially lead to meaningful changes in the city of Shenzhen and the everyday life of its people. By juxtaposing the strategy of the “Make with Shenzhen” campaign with the tactical practices surrounding it, this study offers insight into the challenges and possibilities brought about by the city-wide learning and making in the Chinese context.

In August 2019, The Shenzhen Model City Initiative was released in which the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) announced its decision to support Shenzhen, the long-standing poster city for China’s economic reform, in building a demonstration pilot zone for Chinese socialism with a particular emphasis on further developing the city’s technological prowess. What are the ideological implications of the latest model-making of Shenzhen? And how does the city’s innovative turn relate to its role as the nation’s perceived civilizational front line? This study explores the continuities and evolution of contemporary Chinese governance by considering the reinvention of the “Shenzhen Model” in relation to processes of urbanization, globalization and industrial upgrading. Drawing upon Tim Oakes’s theory of the “urban” as an ideological device, it examines the (re)making of the “Shenzhen Model” through different discourses, apparatuses and policies related to the city’s technological innovationand entrepreneurship. Situating the “Shenzhen Model” at a time of precarity and uncertainty amidst economic growth slowdown, the China-United States trade war and the COVID-19 pandemic, this article demonstrates how the state mobilizes narratives and practices pertinent to technological innovation and entrepreneurship to enhance its political influence and thus sheds light on the latest developments in urban governance during China’s post-industrial turn.

The recent expansion of the overseas education market in China has led to the rise of “Background Promotion Projects” designed to strengthen the applications of elite university aspirants. Based on ethnographic findings of a particular Background Promotion Project, a Chinese high school entrepreneurship competition, this study analyses how international applicants to elite Western universities learn “the art of aspiration” by constructing and performing entrepreneurial subjectivities. Building a link between Arjun Appadurai’s concept of “the capacity to aspire” and Elizabeth Currid-Halkett’s theory of “the aspirational class”, this study reveals how deepening social stratification in China and the rise of a global meritocracy reinforce each other. Demonstrating how privilege is consolidated and justified through the (re)production of aspirations, this study further contributes to the theorisation of class reproduction and education during a time of post-industrial change and international mobility.

MOBA games – a major site for male bonding – have gained wide popularity in Chinese universities. However, college gamers in general suffer from stigmatization as game addicts and this challenges their senses of masculinity. Based on four months of field study, this article investigates the formation of MOBA gamers’ masculinities through diverse game-related practices and discourses, with a particular focus on its intersection with class. Building on Tony Coles’ theoretical model of “a field of masculinity,” the article concludes that MOBA games constitute an arena where performances of social class, and recognition of class entitlements, are enacted and coded in a highly gendered way. Arguing that the masculine hierarchy in MOBA gaming culture is not so much about the MOBA games themselves but rather a “game of social distinction,” this article gives insight into how masculine culture in contemporary China is informed by increasing materialism and social stratification.