Making the Future with the Nonhuman:Shenzhen, the Greater Bay, and 揗ade in China Intelligently�

Abstract

This essay examines two interconnected human-made nonhuman entities stemming from Shenzhen, China抯 first special economic zone, that have become dominant figures in mapping the city抯 � and by extension, China抯 � future: the robot and the drone. I bring an interdisciplinary, cultural studies approach to the multiple meaning-making practices that engage with these two objects; both participate in enacting the vision for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area as an extension of the success of Shenzhen. These practices simultaneously normalise aspirations for a future fuelled by the power of nonhuman technological agents while offering glimpses into the uneven power relations between different humans that underpin such future making. At the same time, they also point to the emergent possibilities of meaning-making that conjoin the human and the nonhuman.