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SZ key to understanding China: US anthropologist

Writer: Han Ximin  |  Editor: Lin Qiuying  |  From: Original  |  Updated: 2025-08-15


Video by Shenzhen News Group

"If you don't understand Shenzhen, you will not understand China's reform and opening up," Mary Ann O'Donnell, an anthropologist from the United States, said in an interview with Shenzhen News Group recently.

"Shenzhen is building itself into a city of innovation. I think Shenzhen offers many advantages, one of them is that it nurtures curiosity and encourages people to explore new opportunities,' said O'Donnell, who has lived in the city since she first arrived in 1995."

Mary Ann O'Donnell, an anthropologist from the United States, in an interview with Shenzhen News Group. 

"I don't think Shenzhen needs to be told what to do. Rather, Shenzhen needs to be clearer about who it really is. Once it achieves that, it definitely earns respect," said O'Donnell.

For her, the best way to understand Shenzhen is to study urban villages and talk to the seniors. She once spent six months recording personal experiences shared by seniors from 15 urban villages in Futian District.

"Urban villages, part of Shenzhen's identity of migration, are records of the city's history and make Shenzhen more diverse. Urban villages are deeply ingrained in the identity of the city," said O’Donnell at an earlier interview with Shenzhen Daily.

She co-edited "Learning From Shenzhen," a book published by the University of Chicago Press in 2017.  The book presents an account of China's contemporary transformation via Shenzhen. In an introduction to the book by the University of Chicago Press, it reads: "Shenzhen, in recent decades, has transformed from an experimental site for economic reform into a dominant city at the crossroads of the global economy. The first of China's special economic zones, Shenzhen is today a UNESCO City of Design and the hub of China's emerging technology industries."

Bringing China studies into dialogue with urban studies, the book shows how urban villages and informal institutions enabled social transformation through cases of public health, labor, architecture, gender, politics, education, and more. It offers scholars and general readers alike an unprecedented look at one of the world’s most dynamic metropolises, and uses the urban case study to explore critical problems and possibilities relevant for modern-day China and beyond.

"I compiled the book because many people in the West have a limited understanding of China," O'Donnell said. "The story of Shenzhen helps explain the significance of reform and opening-up." She added that Shenzhen's role and importance in contemporary China cannot be ignored.

"If you don't understand Shenzhen, you will not understand China's reform and opening up," Mary Ann O'Donnell, an anthropologist from the United States, said in an interview with Shenzhen News Group recently.