| Trademark counterfeiting has been suggested by journalists and economists as the second-oldest profession in the world. Historical material evidence of counterfeiting dates back to Greek pottery from 800 to 400 B.C. and wine stoppers in the south of present-day France in 27 B.C. In recent years, however, in the media China and Chinese immigrants have become more and more commonly associated with images of gangs running global counterfeiting production, threatening public health (food poisoning, fake drugs, funding terrorism) and seriously impeding economic growth and free international trade.;Based on fifteen months of multi-sited fieldwork in China, Taiwan and the United States, my dissertation explores the transnational superstructure and structure of the trajectory of counterfeit goods trade and the blurring boundaries between art and commodity. Through an analysis of the material, commercial, technological, social and psychological aspects of counterfeit goods production and consumption juxtaposed with issues of "authenticity" and "originality" in generating artistic and economic values for luxury, brand name goods, I argue that the emergence of the Shanzhai sub-culture (or "bandit," piracy sub-culture) in China represents a new sphere of extralegality in economic development as opposed to an unfair label of a serious intellectual property rights violator in the eyes of the rest of the world.;At the local level, in the production and consumption activities of the Shanzhai, the counterfeit markets have become social battlefields as well as arenas for different actors with different interests and priorities to put pressure on one another, where roles and expectations may be challenged and changed, and where responsibilities are continuously shifting. However, Chinese citizens have also created a shared sense of cultural intimacy, which turns external embarrassment into the source of an alternative national identity.;Deeply entangled authenticity issues have transcended the international politics of intellectual property rights protection: the gray zones of informal economies have entered the realm of art, occupying museums and assuming other forms of cultural representation reciprocating with mimicry characteristic of popular culture. The culture of copy---the blurring boundaries between art, commodity, and cultural landmarks---has come to characterize contemporary realities in complex capitalist societies. |
