Placing the platform economy: the emerging, developing and upgrading of Taobao villages as a platform-based place making phenomenon in China

Abstract

The actions of platforms and their all-inclusive impact on place development is coined platform-based place making in this article. We use the actor-network theory to analyse a typical e-commerce platform-based place making, namely the emergence, development and upgrading of Taobao villages in China, and to explore the mechanisms of platform place making power. Our study shows that platforms ‘make’ places by platform–place interactions of progressively expanding the enrolment of intra-regional and extra-regional actors. In addition, our research advances the actor-network theory and its application and transcends the urban and production-side bias of economic geography.