Migrant placemaking and authorship: digital storytelling by chinese interprovincial students

Abstract

This article examines how Chinese domestic migrants make meaning of destinations using video creation technologies. It considers the example of how interprovincial university students adopt the participatory and creative practice of digital storytelling. The article finds that the students have created stories of the South (Nanfang) in ways that diverge from the mythologization in official discourse. This mythologization of the South is the result of the uneven development strategy in China’s reform period. The article concludes that migrants are provided with opportunities to engage in alternative placemaking through new media technologies, which is crucial in scrutinizing rapid urbanization and economic development in China.