Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, construction in Shenzhen symbolized both the transformation of Chinese socialism and the concomitant integration of Chinese society into global capitalist networks. This article tells the story of Shenzhen from the perspective of this first generation of immigrants, the so-called Old Shenzheners, who use nostalgia about food to define, debate, and ultimately retreat from conversations about what Shenzhen culture was and what it ought to be. Their food nostalgia is part of a larger cultural tradition of Chinese alimentary politics and has allowed Shenzheners to indigenize capitalist globalization to make the city their own. Old Shenzheners' food nostalgia represents an important moment in the Chinese transition to a post socialist political economy, redefining what it means to be both Chinese and global in a post––cold war world order.
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Research Article|
May 01 2010
The Cultural Politics of Eating in Shenzhen
mary ann o'donnell
mary ann o'donnell
mary ann o'donnell is an anthropologist, teacher, translator, photographer, and dramaturge who has sought alternative ways of inhabiting Shenzhen, the oldest and largest of China's special economic zones. She creates and contributes to projects that reconfigure such shared spaces, where worlds mingle and collide, sometimes collapse, and often implode. O'Donnell recently participated in Foodscape, a dialogue between Swiss and Chinese writers about food and cultural identity.
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Gastronomica (2010) 10 (2): 31–39.
Citation
mary ann o'donnell; The Cultural Politics of Eating in Shenzhen. Gastronomica 1 May 2010; 10 (2): 31–39. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/gfc.2010.10.2.31
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