本土技术创新的文化机制和空间过程：文化经济地理学的视角

The cross-fertilization between cultural geography and economic geography has been a highly engaged field of inquiry in international human geographical research. It signposts the ways in which economic practices and processes are shaped and constituted by cultural elements and processes, in terms of meanings, discourses, identities, etc. It presents a new theoretical frontier that is needed for human geography in China. This project utilizes theories adopted from cultural economic geography to develop an examination of consumer electronics industry in Shenzhen. It investigates four different types of technological innovation in the context of technological globalization. Its primary research methods include participant observation, in-depth interview, visual and textual methods, and big-data mining. Since the 1990s, the innovation, use and consumption of technology have become hotly debated topics in human geography, especially social and cultural geography, economic geography and urban geography. New research approaches emerging at that time have attended to the cultural constitution of innovation and the ways in which it is implicated in spatial processes. First, innovation of technology is shaped by the meanings, discourses, values, ideas, visions and identities shared among communities of innovators. Second, the use and consumption of technology give rise to new cultural meanings, discourses and habitus of everyday life. Third, the cultural mechanisms of innovation are implicated in spatial processes anchored both at the global and the local scales. Since 1990s, the consumer electronics industry of China has undergone a process of rapid expansion and development. While many early enterprises and businesspeople built their economic practices on the basis of the adoption and even copy of technologies circulated within global networks of technologies and knowledge, China has been making a rapid transition from "a country of manufacturing" to "a country of innovation". It is in fact now a major source of technological innovations and novel consumer electronical products in the world. This project is based on the belief that, to understand this transition, it is imperative to analyze relationships between technological mobilities at the global scale and the economic, social and cultural practices at a local level. This project aims to (1) examine the cultural mechanisms underlying localised practices of technological innovation; (2) excavate the spatial logics of technological innovation, especially the reciprocal relationships between the local and the global; (3) rethink and re-theorize concepts such as innovation and the globalization of technologies and technoscapes.

社会文化地理学与"新"经济地理学的融合和交叉正成为国际人文地理学研究的新趋势，由此催生的文化经济地理学着重探讨文化过程和要素如何建构和塑造经济实践和经济过程，这亦是国内人文地理学需要开拓的一个领域。课题从文化经济地理学出发，以深圳市消费型电子产业为案例，综合运用参与式观察、深度访谈、文本和图像法、大数据文本挖掘等研究方法，探讨四种类型的技术创新实践。20世纪90年代以来，技术的创新、生产和消费成为人文地理学的研究热点。新的研究范式着重关注技术创新的文化机制和空间过程。首先，创新作为一种经济行为是被创新者认同的意义、话语、价值、理念、愿景、身份等文化要素所塑造的。第二，技术的消费促使大众赋予技术文化、话语和意义。最后，这一系列文化机制嵌入在一定的空间过程和空间网络中，包含全球和本土两个尺度。课题在理论层面厘清技术创新的文化机制和全球-本土尺度的空间过程，同时进一步思考创新、技术全球化等概念。

社会文化地理学与“新”经济地理学的融合和交叉正在成为国际人文地理学研究的新趋势，由此催生的文化经济地理学着重探讨文化过程和要素如何建构和塑造经济实践和经济过程，这亦是国内人文地理学需要开拓的一个领域。在广泛阅读西方代表性文献的基础上，课题首先梳理出文化经济地理学的概念内涵和理论脉络，强调一要聚焦经济行为和实践的文化维度，阐释经济行动者的文化意义系统、社会互动动态、日常生活体验对经济的形塑作用；二要着眼于经济与地方社会的互塑关系，揭示经济活动与生产地、消费地的社会文化本底之间的相互建构。从这种基本的理论立场出发，课题以中国深圳的山寨电子产业和创客运动为案例，主要利用质性的研究方法探讨不同类型知识经济和创新实践的文化机制和空间过程。超越这两个实证研究，课题对创新的社会文化地理进行了系统的理论化和概念化工作。课题提供了一种替代式的研究议程，它将创新重新理解为分散在日常经验、实践和政治之中，作为一个广泛分布于多元认知社区之间的去中心化和异质性过程，以及作为一道被不平等和非对称权力刻画的非均衡、条纹化和层级化的景观，这将启发后续研究重视和欣赏创新因应其行动者、地方、实践、文化话语、物质文化等的分异而产生的丰富多变的理性、逻辑、路径和结果。同时，课题也综合了参与式观察、深度访谈、文本阅读、大数据挖掘等研究方法，广泛探讨了基于日常城市主义的城市政治经济学、以建筑实验或创意艺术为介质的乡村复兴计划、边疆少数民族地区的发展地理学、以及有关城市环境的城市政治生态学等议题。相关研究发现一致反映了文化经济地理学视角对于理解转型期中国更广阔的时空框架下社会、文化、经济、政治和生态实践及变迁的强大解释力，核心的结论是经济与非经济、资本与非资本要素、关系、力量在不同情景下的相互交织、冲突和协商。