Reconfiguring the boundaries of self and state in the PRC: Metaverse, Social Credit, and Ethnicity

重新配置中华人民共和国的自我和国家边界：元宇宙、社会信用和种族

• 批准号: 2742805
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Brunel University London
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2022 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2742805
• 关键词: Reconfiguring; boundaries; self; state; PRC

China is already the world's most deeply integrated and technologically advanced society. The citizen's identity and agencyare coded about a singular government-issued ID. This then ties to everything from one's bank account and social creditscore to one's messaging and social media profiles and so reconfigures the boundary of what we might consider the'person'. In the purest sense, this is the definition of 'metaverse': a virtual realm mapped onto quotidian reality, from which'legitimate operators' can move seamlessly back and forth. Continuing my masters research into the Chinese metaversewith those at its limits in Hong Kong and Taiwan, I plan to show how the unique perspective of the Tujia minority providesan ideal delimitation within which to chart the boundaries of the cybernetic human in China today, and so present onepossible future for the internet globally.The Tujia are greatly understudied. Millions live within the vicinity of Chongqing, arguably China's largest, leastwesternised,and yet most technologically advanced megacity. There has been no community ethnography of the Tujia inChongqing, and no studies into how they have been affected by rapid sociotechnological changes, such as the recentroll-out of 5G, soon to be felt everywhere.Given the rising tides of nationalism in the PRC and their intersection with rapid urbanisation, new media, and thedeethnicisation of public discourse, I ask how does Tujia ethnicity modulate the interface of selfhood with the state? Giventhe prime role played by AI and algorithmic logic in China's technocracy, how do new technologies further mediate thisprocess? Using online and offline participant observation, semi-structured interviews, network-mapping, and linguistic GISdata, I will build upon the theoretical concept of 'cybernesis' that I have developed through my previous research to explainhow sociotechnological evolution reconfigures the boundaries of self and state.

中国已经是世界上融合程度最深、技术最先进的社会。公民的身份和机构被编码为一个单一的政府发放的ID。然后，这将与从一个人的银行账户和社会信用评分到一个人的消息和社交媒体个人资料的一切联系在一起，因此重新配置了我们可能认为的“人”的边界。在最纯粹的意义上，这就是“虚拟世界”的定义：一个映射到日常现实中的虚拟领域，“合法的操作者”可以在其中无缝地来回移动。继续我的硕士学位对中国化身的研究，以及对香港和台湾的研究，我计划展示土家族的独特视角如何提供一个理想的分界线，在这个范围内描绘今天中国的控制论人的边界，从而为全球互联网提供一个可能的未来。土家族的研究严重不足。数百万人居住在重庆附近，可以说，重庆是中国最大的、西化程度最低、但技术最先进的特大城市。重庆没有土家族的社区人种学，也没有关于他们如何受到快速社会技术变化的影响的研究，比如最近5G的推出，很快就会在各地感受到。鉴于中国民族主义浪潮的兴起，以及它们与快速城市化、新媒体和公共话语的去民族化的交叉，我想问土家族民族是如何调节自我与国家的界面的？鉴于人工智能和算法逻辑在中国的技术官僚中扮演的主要角色，新技术如何进一步调解这一过程？利用线上和线下的参与者观察、半结构化访谈、网络地图和语言地理信息系统数据，我将建立在我通过之前的研究发展起来的理论概念--控制论的基础上，来解释社会技术进化如何重新配置自我和国家的边界。