Please join us for a webinar exploring how entrepreneurship has taken root in unexpected ways across vastly different periods of Chinese history. Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellow at Copenhagen Business School, Adam Frost will uncover the hidden world of informal labor brokering in Maoist China, revealing how underground networks of labor recruiters bypassed rigid state systems to match workers with jobs. These brokers forged documents, bribed officials, and leveraged personal ties to create a shadow labor market that reshaped work and challenged the limits of state control. Assistant Professor of Global Commerce at Denison University, Leksa Lee will bring us to the contemporary culture industry in China, where firms partner with local governments to build “cultural projects.” Her research highlights the ambivalence entrepreneurs feel toward the state, showing how, despite official support for small businesses, it is often the state’s indirect influence—as regulator, client, and gatekeeper—that defines entrepreneurial success. Together, these talks examine how informal actors and state power co-construct markets in China, past and present. From the resilience of underground economies to the complexities of “entrepreneurial governance,” this event offers fresh insights into how enterprise adapts under constraint.
Adam K. Frost is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellow at Copenhagen Business School. His research draws upon novel historical sources and original datasets to explore the history of entrepreneurship and innovation in 20th century China. His work has examined the socio-spatial dimensions of technological diffusion in the cotton industry of Republican China, the entrepreneurial production of space in contemporary Xi’an, and the coevolution of statecraft and informal entrepreneurial ecosystems in Maoist China.
Leksa Lee is an anthropologist and an Assistant Professor of Global Commerce at Denison University. Her research is focused on the rise of China, postsocialist capitalism, and the design of the built environment. Her book project is an ethnography of a design firm in China that builds new museums, theme parks, and tourism developments for local governments. The book examines the complex politics of the government contracting process, and how designers and local government officials negotiate conflicting priorities to ultimately portray history and culture in public space amid the tightening cultural politics of the Xi Jinping era.
Jue Liang, a scholar of Tibetan Buddhism. Her research and teaching engage with questions about continuities as well as innovations in the gender discourses of Buddhist communities. She is also interested in the theory and practice of translation in general, and translating Tibetan literature in particular.
Please join us for a webinar exploring how entrepreneurship has taken root in unexpected ways across vastly different periods of Chinese history. Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellow at Copenhagen Business School, Adam Frost will uncover the hidden world of informal labor brokering in Maoist China, revealing how underground networks of labor recruiters bypassed rigid state systems to match workers with jobs. These brokers forged documents, bribed officials, and leveraged personal ties to create a shadow labor market that reshaped work and challenged the limits of state control. Assistant Professor of Global Commerce at Denison University, Leksa Lee will bring us to the contemporary culture industry in China, where firms partner with local governments to build “cultural projects.” Her research highlights the ambivalence entrepreneurs feel toward the state, showing how, despite official support for small businesses, it is often the state’s indirect influence—as regulator, client, and gatekeeper—that defines entrepreneurial success. Together, these talks examine how informal actors and state power co-construct markets in China, past and present. From the resilience of underground economies to the complexities of “entrepreneurial governance,” this event offers fresh insights into how enterprise adapts under constraint.
Adam K. Frost is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellow at Copenhagen Business School. His research draws upon novel historical sources and original datasets to explore the history of entrepreneurship and innovation in 20th century China. His work has examined the socio-spatial dimensions of technological diffusion in the cotton industry of Republican China, the entrepreneurial production of space in contemporary Xi’an, and the coevolution of statecraft and informal entrepreneurial ecosystems in Maoist China.
Leksa Lee is an anthropologist and an Assistant Professor of Global Commerce at Denison University. Her research is focused on the rise of China, postsocialist capitalism, and the design of the built environment. Her book project is an ethnography of a design firm in China that builds new museums, theme parks, and tourism developments for local governments. The book examines the complex politics of the government contracting process, and how designers and local government officials negotiate conflicting priorities to ultimately portray history and culture in public space amid the tightening cultural politics of the Xi Jinping era.
Jue Liang, a scholar of Tibetan Buddhism. Her research and teaching engage with questions about continuities as well as innovations in the gender discourses of Buddhist communities. She is also interested in the theory and practice of translation in general, and translating Tibetan literature in particular.
