Digital Anthropology Meets China - Insights from Professor Daniel Miller’s Book Talk on February 12th

In his February 12th Book Talk, professor Daniel Miller explored the themes of his latest work, “Understanding China through Digital Anthropology”. The discussion highlighted how digital media shapes social, cultural, and personal dynamics in contemporary China, providing a unique anthropological perspective on a rapidly evolving society.

Miller states that China does not simply take what we think is digital technology and transpose it to China. Analysing what digital means from a Chinese perspective exposes the rather extraordinary way in which we think about digital technology in the West.

“There are all sorts of reasons why even if you weren’t otherwise interested in China per se but your interest in digital anthropology, you would want to pay particular attention to China. - - it’s the only place in the world that has distinctly different - digital media ecology,  in the sense that, you know, everything we take for granted and probably is in common between, say, England and Finland. Things like -  YouTube, Google, Amazon, and the rest of it. Whereas in China it will be WeChat, Alibaba, Tencent etc. So, it is the only place we can kind of situate ourselves in terms of contrast. - -  So this means we have the possibility of comparison,” Miller says. 

“What is digital? We said, oh maybe we can talk about everything that can be ultimately reducible to bits and to codes.  - - I also feel it is actually quite wrong because it’s essentially a technological definition, and for an anthropologist, the meaning of digital isn’t simply reducible to those technological elements. It’s also everything the word means to us—how we use it, its connotations, its symbolism, etc. --An algorithm isn’t just the mechanics of how it works. It’s  the relationship we have to it, the way we think about it, and -  what we feel about it.”

According to Miller, the role of technology should not be limited to its physicality and what it does. Instead, it will always have moral connotations. When it comes to China, these are primarily concerned with two things: the role of the emperor in securing the harmony of the population and ensuring its welfare.

The idea that digital technology will allow China to retake its place as a vanguard in the world today is rooted in its current political structure, which places a strong emphasis on what it calls Chinese characteristics. This framework allows for the incorporation of older cosmopolitan elements into the aspirations of modern China. Technology is part of the desire of the people to improve the quality of life. 

Overall, the history and ideology of China expose the ideological foundation of what we call digital technology in the West. Miller finds it striking the way the Chinese state can, on the one hand, invest heavily in these digital technologies, but also ensure that they ultimately correspond to harmony and, in particular, welfare. 

See more work of Professor Miller here.

Miller’s talk, a part of the REPAIR Scholarly Talk series, followed a talk the previous day, where Professor Miller juxtaposed a philosophical inquiry into the nature of the good life with an ethnography of retired people in a small Irish town. By examining themes such as freedom, inequality, and the deliberate creation of community, the talk revealed how anthropology and philosophy can together illuminate what it means to live "the good enough life."

The REPAIR Scholarly Talks series brings together researchers and experts to explore the role of repair in technology, society, and culture. Follow our LinkedIn and Bluesky and subscribe to our newsletter to stay tuned on upcoming events!