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Article: 'What would happen if you can’t see your money?': Visibility and the emergent infrastructures of digital money storage in China

Title'What would happen if you can’t see your money?': Visibility and the emergent infrastructures of digital money storage in China
Authors
KeywordsAlipay
China
Digital money
Infrastructure
Labour
Migration
Money
Saving
Storage
Yu’e bao
Issue Date2021
PublisherSage Publications Ltd. The Journal's web site is located at http://www.sagepub.co.uk/journal.aspx?pid=105720
Citation
New Media & Society, 2021, v. 23 n. 4, p. 715-731 How to Cite?
AbstractThis article adopts an infrastructural perspective to analyse Chinese migrant factory workers’ conceptions of and approaches towards storing money on digital payment platforms. Scholars studying infrastructural systems have emphasised that such systems generally only become visible upon breakdown. However, this article finds that during the emergence of new infrastructures for monetary storage, existing infrastructures – along with the money stored within them – also become rendered conspicuous to users. In such moments, migrant factory workers are forced to assess the differences between existing and new infrastructural systems and make careful decisions over how to store their money. We claim it is necessary to acknowledge the shifting visibility of infrastructures during occasions of systemic transformation. Doing so can help to better understand how users navigate such infrastructures in attempts to solve problems of storage, while in the process re-evaluating their relationships with a variety of entities and institutions.
Persistent Identifierhttp://hdl.handle.net/10722/285454
ISSN
2021 Impact Factor: 5.310
2020 SCImago Journal Rankings: 3.501
ISI Accession Number ID
Grants

 

DC FieldValueLanguage
dc.contributor.authorMcDonald, T-
dc.contributor.authorGuo, Y-
dc.date.accessioned2020-08-18T03:53:35Z-
dc.date.available2020-08-18T03:53:35Z-
dc.date.issued2021-
dc.identifier.citationNew Media & Society, 2021, v. 23 n. 4, p. 715-731-
dc.identifier.issn1461-4448-
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10722/285454-
dc.description.abstractThis article adopts an infrastructural perspective to analyse Chinese migrant factory workers’ conceptions of and approaches towards storing money on digital payment platforms. Scholars studying infrastructural systems have emphasised that such systems generally only become visible upon breakdown. However, this article finds that during the emergence of new infrastructures for monetary storage, existing infrastructures – along with the money stored within them – also become rendered conspicuous to users. In such moments, migrant factory workers are forced to assess the differences between existing and new infrastructural systems and make careful decisions over how to store their money. We claim it is necessary to acknowledge the shifting visibility of infrastructures during occasions of systemic transformation. Doing so can help to better understand how users navigate such infrastructures in attempts to solve problems of storage, while in the process re-evaluating their relationships with a variety of entities and institutions.-
dc.languageeng-
dc.publisherSage Publications Ltd. The Journal's web site is located at http://www.sagepub.co.uk/journal.aspx?pid=105720-
dc.relation.ispartofNew Media & Society-
dc.rightsTom McDonald, Yanan Guo, ‘What would happen if you can’t see your money?’: Visibility and the emergent infrastructures of digital money storage in China, New Media & Society (Vol 23, Issue 4) pp. 715-731. Copyright © 2020 The Author(s). DOI: 10.1177/1461444820954198.-
dc.subjectAlipay-
dc.subjectChina-
dc.subjectDigital money-
dc.subjectInfrastructure-
dc.subjectLabour-
dc.subjectMigration-
dc.subjectMoney-
dc.subjectSaving-
dc.subjectStorage-
dc.subjectYu’e bao-
dc.title'What would happen if you can’t see your money?': Visibility and the emergent infrastructures of digital money storage in China-
dc.typeArticle-
dc.identifier.emailMcDonald, T: mcdonald@hku.hk-
dc.identifier.authorityMcDonald, T=rp02060-
dc.description.naturepostprint-
dc.identifier.doi10.1177/1461444820954198-
dc.identifier.scopuseid_2-s2.0-85104355485-
dc.identifier.hkuros312939-
dc.identifier.volume23-
dc.identifier.issue4-
dc.identifier.spage715-
dc.identifier.epage731-
dc.identifier.isiWOS:000640003000004-
dc.publisher.placeUnited Kingdom-
dc.relation.projectDigital money and migration in China: Contemporary monetary practices and imagined economic futures-
dc.identifier.issnl1461-4448-

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