Abstract

Das Projekt „Digital Entanglements: discourses and practices around Sino-Swiss fibre optic infrastructures since the 1970s“ hat zum Ziel, eine globale Geschichte der wirtschaftlichen Verflechtungen zwischen der Schweiz und China seit den späten 1970er-Jahren bis zur Gegenwart zu schreiben. Es setzt an bei der Öffnung des chinesischen Marktes für ausländische Investoren, der Integration von China in die globalen Lieferketten, der Entstehung der Volksrepublik China als High Tech-Nation und der sino-schweizerischen wirtschaftlichen Verflechtung. Das Projekt erforscht, wie chinesisch-schweizerische Unternehmen auf komplexe Weise historisch, politisch, wirtschaftlich, sozial und technisch miteinander verflochten sind. Dazu umfasst das Projekt: (a) das historische Teilprojekt “Sino-Swiss Entanglements: Schweizer Unternehmen in China seit der Reformpolitik in den 1980er-Jahren“, das auf Schweizer Joint Ventures in China zwischen 1978 und 1995 fokussiert; und (b) das ethnologische Teilprojekt „China’s Digital Silk Road to Europe: Global Entanglements of Chinese ICT Companies in Switzerland“, das aus einer sozial-technischen Perspektive die Flüsse von Technologien, Menschen, Vorstellungen und Wissen zwischen China und der Schweiz untersucht. Insgesamt ermöglicht das Projekt: (1) Einen Beitrag zur Geschichte von Schweizer Unternehmen im Ausland sowie zu einer globalen Geschichte der Schweiz; (2) eine faktenbasierte Darstellung der chinesischen Präsenz in der Schweiz; (3) Einblicke in die soziale Seite der technologischen und wirtschaftlichen Verflechtungen und eine Sichtbarmachung der menschlichen Akteur*innen hinter den häufig unsichtbaren digitalen Strukturen; und (4) ein neues Instrumentarium interdisziplinärer Methoden zur Untersuchung wirtschaftlicher Verflechtungen.

Beschreibung

The project “Digital Entanglements: discourses and practices around Sino-Swiss fibre optic infrastructures since the 1970s” aims to write a global history of the economic ties between Switzerland and China since the late 1970s.
The project is based on the assumption that the economic entanglements can be better understood by looking in both directions of the economic presence. For this, it is essential to gain a sound historical understanding of the integration of China in the global supply chains in the 1970s, the emergence of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as a high-tech nation, and the presence of Swiss companies in China and vice versa. Focusing on the complex transnational entanglements, the project investigates two main questions: (1) How are China and Switzerland historically, politico-economically and socio-technically entangled? (2) How do these entanglements manifest themselves in both discourse and practice?
To answer these overarching questions, the project comprises: (a) the historical sub-project “Sino-Swiss Entanglements: Swiss Companies in China since the Reform Policy in the 1980s”, which focuses on Swiss joint ventures in China between 1978 and 1995; the sub-project focuses on a econoimc and business history and investigates the sub-question: What is the specific role of entrepreneurs and state actors in the emergence of these economic entanglements?
And (b) the anthropological sub-project “China’s Digital Silk Road to Europe: Global Entanglements of Chinese ICT Companies in Switzerland”, which asks: How are people, technologies and related knowledge and skills in the Sino-Swiss fibre optic infrastructures circulated and transferred within these complex transnational entanglements? The focus is on the period between the 1990s and today, in the context of broader Chinese and geopolitical debates around Chinese technologies.
These questions will be answered both historically and anthropologically, through an interdisciplinary methodological approach that combines methods from history, qualitative social science, media studies and science and technology studies (STS), including oral history interviews, analyses of archival, media and economic documents, as well as ethnographic case studies.
This will result in:
(1) A contribution to the history of Swiss companies abroad as well as a global history of Switzerland;
(2) A balanced account of the Chinese presence in Switzerland, based on sound empirical data to challenge prevailing, one-sided Western and Chinese narratives about China;
(3) Insights into the social aspects of the intensifying technological and economic entanglements, rendering visible the human actors that shape and are shaped by these new digital structures; and
(4) A new set of interdisciplinary methods for the socio-technical investigation of digital infrastructures in various local and global settings.
More broadly, the project will contribute to a better understanding of the impact of Swiss enterprises abroad, a fact-based assessment of China’s Digital Silk Road initiative and the related risks and opportunities.

---