{"id":{"repo_id":"anu","oai_identifier":"oai:openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au:1885/148755"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/anu/oai:openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au:1885/148755","repository":{"repo_id":"anu","name":"Australian National University","base_url":"https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/server/oai/request"},"display":{"title":"Living on E-Commerce: The Politics and Ethics of E-Trading in a Chinese City","abstract":"Based on thirteen-month fieldwork in the city of Yiwu, an emergent e-commercial hub in Southeast China, this dissertation looks at the making of a neoliberal e-commerce economy and its political, economic, social, and cultural impacts on e-traders in the locality. Despite some state developmental endeavors, this new economy is largely fostered by grassroots market players and facilitated by large e-platform giants, such as the Alibaba Group. The expansion of this new economy has given individual Chinese e-traders new opportunities to generate wealth and cultural capital, achieve upward social mobility and construct an enterprising subjectivity. Yet, the domination of e-platform giants in this economy has also created a precarious condition for the grassroots e-traders, in which they have to adapt to the changing environment and find creative strategies and tactics to ensure their economic security. Through investigations of their self-reliant discourses and business practices in opposition to state intervention in economy and in individual life, their negotiations over independence and justice under the hegemony of e-platform giants, their struggles for social recognition in urban Chinese society, their moral agency in negotiating and contesting ethics in business encounters, and their employment of self-enterprising and self-disciplining measures in dealing with economic and social uncertainties, this dissertation illustrates how the ongoing formation of the digital regime of accumulation generates an anxious yet flourishing life for the e-traders under neoliberalism as well as speaks to the culturally specific process of subjectivization in China.","abstract_html":"Based on thirteen-month fieldwork in the city of Yiwu, an emergent e-commercial hub in Southeast China, this dissertation looks at the making of a neoliberal e-commerce economy and its political, economic, social, and cultural impacts on e-traders in the locality. Despite some state developmental endeavors, this new economy is largely fostered by grassroots market players and facilitated by large e-platform giants, such as the Alibaba Group. The expansion of this new economy has given individual Chinese e-traders new opportunities to generate wealth and cultural capital, achieve upward social mobility and construct an enterprising subjectivity. Yet, the domination of e-platform giants in this economy has also created a precarious condition for the grassroots e-traders, in which they have to adapt to the changing environment and find creative strategies and tactics to ensure their economic security. Through investigations of their self-reliant discourses and business practices in opposition to state intervention in economy and in individual life, their negotiations over independence and justice under the hegemony of e-platform giants, their struggles for social recognition in urban Chinese society, their moral agency in negotiating and contesting ethics in business encounters, and their employment of self-enterprising and self-disciplining measures in dealing with economic and social uncertainties, this dissertation illustrates how the ongoing formation of the digital regime of accumulation generates an anxious yet flourishing life for the e-traders under neoliberalism as well as speaks to the culturally specific process of subjectivization in China.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Qian, Linliang"],"institution":"Canberra, ACT : The Australian National University","degree_name":null,"degree_level":null,"degree_discipline":null,"degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":[],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2018,"date_issued":"2018","date_published":"2018","updated_at":"2026-07-24T00:54:44Z","subjects":["E-Commerce","China","Yiwu","Taobao","Alibaba","entrepreneurial subjects","neoliberalism"],"languages":["en_AU"],"rights":["Author retains copyright"],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier.other","label":"Dc Identifier Other","values":["b58077017"],"render_values":[{"text":"b58077017","href":null,"code":true}]}]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/1885/148755","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier.uri"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Qian, Linliang"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date.accessioned","label":"Dc Date Accessioned","values":["2018-11-01T02:50:50Z"]},{"key":"dc:date.issued","label":"Date","values":["2018"]},{"key":"dc:publisher","label":"Institution","values":["Canberra, ACT : The Australian National University"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["Thesis (PhD)"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["E-Commerce","China","Yiwu","Taobao","Alibaba","entrepreneurial subjects","neoliberalism"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language.iso","label":"Language (ISO)","values":["en_AU"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["Author retains copyright"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier.other","label":"Dc Identifier Other","values":["b58077017"]},{"key":"dc:identifier.uri","label":"Identifier URI","values":["http://hdl.handle.net/1885/148755"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description.abstract","label":"Abstract","values":["Based on thirteen-month fieldwork in the city of Yiwu, an emergent e-commercial hub in Southeast China, this dissertation looks at the making of a neoliberal e-commerce economy and its political, economic, social, and cultural impacts on e-traders in the locality. Despite some state developmental endeavors, this new economy is largely fostered by grassroots market players and facilitated by large e-platform giants, such as the Alibaba Group. The expansion of this new economy has given individual Chinese e-traders new opportunities to generate wealth and cultural capital, achieve upward social mobility and construct an enterprising subjectivity. Yet, the domination of e-platform giants in this economy has also created a precarious condition for the grassroots e-traders, in which they have to adapt to the changing environment and find creative strategies and tactics to ensure their economic security. Through investigations of their self-reliant discourses and business practices in opposition to state intervention in economy and in individual life, their negotiations over independence and justice under the hegemony of e-platform giants, their struggles for social recognition in urban Chinese society, their moral agency in negotiating and contesting ethics in business encounters, and their employment of self-enterprising and self-disciplining measures in dealing with economic and social uncertainties, this dissertation illustrates how the ongoing formation of the digital regime of accumulation generates an anxious yet flourishing life for the e-traders under neoliberalism as well as speaks to the culturally specific process of subjectivization in China."]},{"key":"dc:format.mimetype","label":"Dc Format Mimetype","values":["application/pdf"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Living on E-Commerce: The Politics and Ethics of E-Trading in a Chinese City"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:creator":["Qian, Linliang"],"dc:date.accessioned":["2018-11-01T02:50:50Z"],"dc:date.issued":["2018"],"dc:description.abstract":["Based on thirteen-month fieldwork in the city of Yiwu, an emergent e-commercial hub in Southeast China, this dissertation looks at the making of a neoliberal e-commerce economy and its political, economic, social, and cultural impacts on e-traders in the locality. Despite some state developmental endeavors, this new economy is largely fostered by grassroots market players and facilitated by large e-platform giants, such as the Alibaba Group. The expansion of this new economy has given individual Chinese e-traders new opportunities to generate wealth and cultural capital, achieve upward social mobility and construct an enterprising subjectivity. Yet, the domination of e-platform giants in this economy has also created a precarious condition for the grassroots e-traders, in which they have to adapt to the changing environment and find creative strategies and tactics to ensure their economic security. Through investigations of their self-reliant discourses and business practices in opposition to state intervention in economy and in individual life, their negotiations over independence and justice under the hegemony of e-platform giants, their struggles for social recognition in urban Chinese society, their moral agency in negotiating and contesting ethics in business encounters, and their employment of self-enterprising and self-disciplining measures in dealing with economic and social uncertainties, this dissertation illustrates how the ongoing formation of the digital regime of accumulation generates an anxious yet flourishing life for the e-traders under neoliberalism as well as speaks to the culturally specific process of subjectivization in China."],"dc:format.mimetype":["application/pdf"],"dc:identifier.other":["b58077017"],"dc:identifier.uri":["http://hdl.handle.net/1885/148755"],"dc:language.iso":["en_AU"],"dc:publisher":["Canberra, ACT : The Australian National University"],"dc:rights":["Author retains copyright"],"dc:subject":["E-Commerce","China","Yiwu","Taobao","Alibaba","entrepreneurial subjects","neoliberalism"],"dc:title":["Living on E-Commerce: The Politics and Ethics of E-Trading in a Chinese City"],"dc:type":["Thesis (PhD)"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-24T00:54:44Z"}