Tom Gold of UC Berkeley will be giving a talk on Thursday, March 11 at 4pm in the University Club, Pub Room. Please contact the U.S.-China Institute at uschina@usc.edu with any questions.
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03/11/2010
4:00PM - 5:30PM
USC University Club, Pub Room, Los Angeles, CA 90089
Cost: Free
Cost: Free
After three decades of reform, China still does not have an infrastructure to supply start-up capital for even the smallest businesses, but in the past few years, several international Non-Governmental Organizations have become active in China, providing microcredit for small entrepreneurs.
This talk uses a case study of Wokai (我开 "I start" [an enterprise]), an NGO based in San Francisco and Beijing, which, using the Kiva model, utilizes the internet to post profiles of potential borrowers to whom donors can target their funds. Drawing on the Grameen Bank model, it builds communities among the borrowers as well as between them and their foreign donors. This presentation examines the ways in which the internet is linking people at the grassroots in China to global society, with implications for the changing shape of the business field and social space more generally.
Tom Gold is professor of sociology at UC Berkeley and a member of the USC US-China Institute board of scholars. He’s the executive director of the Inter-University Program for Chinese Language Studies at Tsinghua University. He previously served as chair of Berkeley’s Center for Chinese Studies and the Berkeley China Initiative. Prof. Gold is best known for his work on the Taiwan economic miracle (State and Society in the Taiwan Miracle, 1986) and is currently working on Remaking Taiwan: Society and the State Since The End of Martial Law. He’s the author of numerous book chapters and journal articles. His co-edited books include Laid-Off Workers in a Workers’ State: Unemployment With Chinese Characteristics (2009), Social Connections in China: Institutions, Culture, and the Nature of Guanxi (2002), and New Entrepreneurs of Europe and Asia: Patterns of Business Development in Russia, Eastern Europe and China (2002).
This talk uses a case study of Wokai (我开 "I start" [an enterprise]), an NGO based in San Francisco and Beijing, which, using the Kiva model, utilizes the internet to post profiles of potential borrowers to whom donors can target their funds. Drawing on the Grameen Bank model, it builds communities among the borrowers as well as between them and their foreign donors. This presentation examines the ways in which the internet is linking people at the grassroots in China to global society, with implications for the changing shape of the business field and social space more generally.
Tom Gold is professor of sociology at UC Berkeley and a member of the USC US-China Institute board of scholars. He’s the executive director of the Inter-University Program for Chinese Language Studies at Tsinghua University. He previously served as chair of Berkeley’s Center for Chinese Studies and the Berkeley China Initiative. Prof. Gold is best known for his work on the Taiwan economic miracle (State and Society in the Taiwan Miracle, 1986) and is currently working on Remaking Taiwan: Society and the State Since The End of Martial Law. He’s the author of numerous book chapters and journal articles. His co-edited books include Laid-Off Workers in a Workers’ State: Unemployment With Chinese Characteristics (2009), Social Connections in China: Institutions, Culture, and the Nature of Guanxi (2002), and New Entrepreneurs of Europe and Asia: Patterns of Business Development in Russia, Eastern Europe and China (2002).
Sponsored by the USC U.S.-China Institute
