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

中国已经是世界上一体化程度最高、技术最先进的社会。公民的身份和机构是由一个单一的政府颁发的身份证编码的。然后，这与从一个人的银行账户和社会信用评分到一个人的短信和社交媒体资料的一切都联系在一起，从而重新配置了我们可能认为的“人”的界限。从最纯粹的意义上说，这就是“虚拟世界”的定义：一个映射到日常现实的虚拟领域，“合法运营商”可以在其中无缝地来回移动。继续我在香港和台湾对中国网络的研究，我计划展示土家族少数民族的独特视角如何提供一个理想的界限，在这个界限内绘制当今中国控制论人类的边界，从而为全球互联网提供一个可能的未来。对土家族的研究还远远不够。数百万人居住在重庆附近，重庆可以说是中国最大、最不西方化、但技术最先进的特大城市。重庆没有关于土家族的社区民族志，也没有研究他们如何受到快速的社会技术变革的影响，比如最近5G的推出，很快就会无处不在。考虑到民族主义在中国的兴起，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，我问土家族民族如何调节自我与国家的接口？考虑到人工智能和算法逻辑在中国的技术统治中发挥的主要作用，新技术如何进一步调解这一过程？利用在线和离线的参与者观察、半结构化访谈、网络映射和语言学GISdata，我将建立在我通过之前的研究开发的“控制论”的理论概念上，解释社会技术进化如何重新配置自我和状态的边界。

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.