Self as enterprise: digital disability practices of entrepreneurship and employment in the wave of ‘Internet + disability’ in China

ABSTRACT

Situated in China’s neoliberal context and its rapid development of information communication technologies (ICTs), this study aimed to examine how disabled people in China transformed themselves into new self-enterprising subjects in the wave of ‘Internet + Disability.’ In order to answer this question, this study tried to develop an analytical framework to illustrate the disability practices that situated in the ICTs and neoliberal context, underpinned by the discourse of ‘self as enterprise,’ and demonstrated by the practices of entrepreneurship and employment. Based on the research design of case studies and methods that included ethnographic participant observation and in-depth interviews, this study explained how a disabled entrepreneur, Mr. Yuan, took advantage of the wave of ‘Internet + Disability’ to realize his dream of entrepreneurship and face the uncertainties of a precarious entrepreneurship. It also explained how Mr. Yuan’s employees achieved their dreams of employment but suffered the precariousness of enterprising subjects.

KEYWORDS:

• China
• disability
• ICTs
• neoliberalism
• self as enterprise

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Addendum

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Zhongxuan Lin (PhD) is an Associate Research Fellow at the School of Communication and Design, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangdong, China. His research interests include disability studies, cultural studies and communication studies. His work has appeared in Disability & Society; Gender, Place & Culture; Chinese Journal of Communication, International Journal of Communication and New Media & Society among others [email: [email protected]].

Zhi’an Zhang (PhD) is a full Professor and the Dean of School of Communication and Design at Sun Yat-sen University, as well as the Director of Guangdong Key Laboratory for Big Data Analysis and Simulation of Public Opinion. His research interests include media sociology, digital journalism and Internet governance. He has published several books and hundreds of articles in New Media & Society, Journal of Mass Media Ethics, Asian Journal of Communication, Chinese Journal of Communication and so on [email: [email protected]].

Liu Yang (PhD) is a post-doc at School of Journalism and Communication/School of Law, Chongqing University, China. Her research interests include disability studies, political studies and media effects. She has published articles in Disability & Society, Journalism & Communication, International Journal of Social Science and Humanity, Journalism and Communication Review, Modern Communication [email: [email protected]].