Chinese maker culture – co-opting digitally mediated making for nation building

The converging agendas in supporting cultural creativity and digital innovation became evident in the development of creative economy in China. Maker culture has become a key concern for public policy in China, driven by a demand for individualised creativity and the need to co-opt such creativity for nation building. Critics of maker culture have argued that it re-enforces a new global hegemony, one that prioritizes the values of the developed West over Chinese socialist and Confucius values. Applying the concept of ideoscapes, I explore the interpretation and the mediation of the Western creative discourse by Chinese makers and their unique social practices. This article shows the local adaptation of liberal democracy. In the push for a national maker culture strategy, amateur makers as well as professional technology activists work with the state to re-define ‘keywords’ for the operationalisation of Western creative discourse in very different context.