Author: Jie Yang
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134634641
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 304
Book Description
When thinking about the culture and economy of East Asia, many attribute to the region a range of dispositions, including a preference for consensus and social harmony, loyalty and respect towards superiors and government, family values, collectivism, and communitarianism. Affect is central to these concepts, and yet the role of affect and its animated or imagined potentialities in the political economy of East Asia has not been systematically studied. The book examines the affective dimensions of power and economy in East Asia. It illuminates the dynamics of contemporary governance, and ways of overcoming common Western assumptions about East Asian societies. Here, affect is defined as felt quality that gives meaning and imagination to social, political, and economic processes, and as this book demonstrates, it can provide an analytical tool for a nuanced and enriched analysis of social, political, and economic transformations in East Asia. Through ethnographic and media analyses, this book provides a framework for analyzing emerging phenomena in East Asia, such as happiness promotion, therapeutic governance, the psychologization of social issues, the rise of self-help genres, transnational labor migration, new ideologies of gender and the family, and mass-mediated affective communities. Through the lens of affect theory, the contributors explore changing political configurations, economic engagements, modes of belonging, and forms of subjectivity in East Asia, and use ethnographic research and discourse analysis to illustrate the affective dimensions of state and economic power and the way affect informs and inspires action. This interdisciplinary book will be of great interest to students and scholars of Asian studies, anthropology, sociology, media studies, history, cultural studies, and gender and women’s studies.
The Political Economy of Affect and Emotion in East Asia
Author: Jie Yang
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134634641
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 304
Book Description
When thinking about the culture and economy of East Asia, many attribute to the region a range of dispositions, including a preference for consensus and social harmony, loyalty and respect towards superiors and government, family values, collectivism, and communitarianism. Affect is central to these concepts, and yet the role of affect and its animated or imagined potentialities in the political economy of East Asia has not been systematically studied. The book examines the affective dimensions of power and economy in East Asia. It illuminates the dynamics of contemporary governance, and ways of overcoming common Western assumptions about East Asian societies. Here, affect is defined as felt quality that gives meaning and imagination to social, political, and economic processes, and as this book demonstrates, it can provide an analytical tool for a nuanced and enriched analysis of social, political, and economic transformations in East Asia. Through ethnographic and media analyses, this book provides a framework for analyzing emerging phenomena in East Asia, such as happiness promotion, therapeutic governance, the psychologization of social issues, the rise of self-help genres, transnational labor migration, new ideologies of gender and the family, and mass-mediated affective communities. Through the lens of affect theory, the contributors explore changing political configurations, economic engagements, modes of belonging, and forms of subjectivity in East Asia, and use ethnographic research and discourse analysis to illustrate the affective dimensions of state and economic power and the way affect informs and inspires action. This interdisciplinary book will be of great interest to students and scholars of Asian studies, anthropology, sociology, media studies, history, cultural studies, and gender and women’s studies.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134634641
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 304
Book Description
When thinking about the culture and economy of East Asia, many attribute to the region a range of dispositions, including a preference for consensus and social harmony, loyalty and respect towards superiors and government, family values, collectivism, and communitarianism. Affect is central to these concepts, and yet the role of affect and its animated or imagined potentialities in the political economy of East Asia has not been systematically studied. The book examines the affective dimensions of power and economy in East Asia. It illuminates the dynamics of contemporary governance, and ways of overcoming common Western assumptions about East Asian societies. Here, affect is defined as felt quality that gives meaning and imagination to social, political, and economic processes, and as this book demonstrates, it can provide an analytical tool for a nuanced and enriched analysis of social, political, and economic transformations in East Asia. Through ethnographic and media analyses, this book provides a framework for analyzing emerging phenomena in East Asia, such as happiness promotion, therapeutic governance, the psychologization of social issues, the rise of self-help genres, transnational labor migration, new ideologies of gender and the family, and mass-mediated affective communities. Through the lens of affect theory, the contributors explore changing political configurations, economic engagements, modes of belonging, and forms of subjectivity in East Asia, and use ethnographic research and discourse analysis to illustrate the affective dimensions of state and economic power and the way affect informs and inspires action. This interdisciplinary book will be of great interest to students and scholars of Asian studies, anthropology, sociology, media studies, history, cultural studies, and gender and women’s studies.
The Political Economy of Affect and Emotion in East Asia
Author: Jie Yang
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134634579
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 273
Book Description
When thinking about the culture and economy of East Asia, many attribute to the region a range of dispositions, including a preference for consensus and social harmony, loyalty and respect towards superiors and government, family values, collectivism, and communitarianism. Affect is central to these concepts, and yet the role of affect and its animated or imagined potentialities in the political economy of East Asia has not been systematically studied. The book examines the affective dimensions of power and economy in East Asia. It illuminates the dynamics of contemporary governance, and ways of overcoming common Western assumptions about East Asian societies. Here, affect is defined as felt quality that gives meaning and imagination to social, political, and economic processes, and as this book demonstrates, it can provide an analytical tool for a nuanced and enriched analysis of social, political, and economic transformations in East Asia. Through ethnographic and media analyses, this book provides a framework for analyzing emerging phenomena in East Asia, such as happiness promotion, therapeutic governance, the psychologization of social issues, the rise of self-help genres, transnational labor migration, new ideologies of gender and the family, and mass-mediated affective communities. Through the lens of affect theory, the contributors explore changing political configurations, economic engagements, modes of belonging, and forms of subjectivity in East Asia, and use ethnographic research and discourse analysis to illustrate the affective dimensions of state and economic power and the way affect informs and inspires action. This interdisciplinary book will be of great interest to students and scholars of Asian studies, anthropology, sociology, media studies, history, cultural studies, and gender and women’s studies.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134634579
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 273
Book Description
When thinking about the culture and economy of East Asia, many attribute to the region a range of dispositions, including a preference for consensus and social harmony, loyalty and respect towards superiors and government, family values, collectivism, and communitarianism. Affect is central to these concepts, and yet the role of affect and its animated or imagined potentialities in the political economy of East Asia has not been systematically studied. The book examines the affective dimensions of power and economy in East Asia. It illuminates the dynamics of contemporary governance, and ways of overcoming common Western assumptions about East Asian societies. Here, affect is defined as felt quality that gives meaning and imagination to social, political, and economic processes, and as this book demonstrates, it can provide an analytical tool for a nuanced and enriched analysis of social, political, and economic transformations in East Asia. Through ethnographic and media analyses, this book provides a framework for analyzing emerging phenomena in East Asia, such as happiness promotion, therapeutic governance, the psychologization of social issues, the rise of self-help genres, transnational labor migration, new ideologies of gender and the family, and mass-mediated affective communities. Through the lens of affect theory, the contributors explore changing political configurations, economic engagements, modes of belonging, and forms of subjectivity in East Asia, and use ethnographic research and discourse analysis to illustrate the affective dimensions of state and economic power and the way affect informs and inspires action. This interdisciplinary book will be of great interest to students and scholars of Asian studies, anthropology, sociology, media studies, history, cultural studies, and gender and women’s studies.
The Cultural Politics of Affect and Emotion
Author: Wei Dong
Publisher: transcript Verlag
ISBN: 3839462843
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 235
Book Description
Against the background of the media commercialization reform since the 1990s in China and drawing on the case of »X-Change« (2006-2019), Wei Dong investigates the affective meaning-making mechanism in the multimodal text of Chinese reality TV. The focus lies on the ways in which emotions are appropriated and disciplined by regimes of power and identity, and the ways in which affect - in this case primarily kuqing (bitter emotions) communicated by the material and the body - have the potential to challenge or exceed existing relations of power in the mediascape. Wei Dong shows how Chinese reality TV provides a historical and theoretical opportunity for understanding the affective structures of contemporary China in the dynamic process of fracture and integration.
Publisher: transcript Verlag
ISBN: 3839462843
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 235
Book Description
Against the background of the media commercialization reform since the 1990s in China and drawing on the case of »X-Change« (2006-2019), Wei Dong investigates the affective meaning-making mechanism in the multimodal text of Chinese reality TV. The focus lies on the ways in which emotions are appropriated and disciplined by regimes of power and identity, and the ways in which affect - in this case primarily kuqing (bitter emotions) communicated by the material and the body - have the potential to challenge or exceed existing relations of power in the mediascape. Wei Dong shows how Chinese reality TV provides a historical and theoretical opportunity for understanding the affective structures of contemporary China in the dynamic process of fracture and integration.
Chinese Discourses on Happiness
Author: Gerda Wielander
Publisher: Hong Kong University Press
ISBN: 9888455729
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 245
Book Description
Happiness is on China’s agenda. From Xi Jinping’s “Chinese Dream” to online chat forums, the conspicuous references to happiness are hard to miss. This groundbreaking volume analyzes how different social groups make use of the concept and shows how closely official discourses on happiness are intertwined with popular sentiments. The Chinese Communist Party’s attempts to define happiness and well-being around family-focused Han Chinese cultural traditions clearly strike a chord with the wider population. The collection highlights the links connecting the ideologies promoted by the government and the way they inform, and are in turn informed by, various deliberations and feelings circulating in the society. Contributors analyze the government’s “happiness maximization strategies,” including public service advertising campaigns, Confucian and Daoist-inflected discourses adapted for the self-help market, and the promotion of positive psychology as well as “happy housewives.” They also discuss forces countering the hegemonic discourse: different forms of happiness in the LGBTQ community, teachings of Tibetan Buddhism that subvert the material culture propagated by the government, and the cynical messages in online novels that expose the fictitious nature of propaganda. Collectively, the authors bring out contemporary Chinese voices engaging with different philosophies, practices, and idealistic imaginings on what it means to be happy. “This distinctive volume creates sustained dialogues around a substantive debate. Rejecting the conventional contrasts between China and the West, and yet deeply immersed in sinophone media, the authors understand Chinese discourse on happiness as multiple but interconnected conversations within a globally shared production of knowledge. Equally concerned with text and image, they exhibit an ethnographic eye as sharp as any orthodox ethnography.” —Deborah Davis, Yale University “Wielander and Hird have put together a superbly researched and thoughtfully written set of essays on the multiple ways in which that most elusive of all states—happiness—is understood and pursued in contemporary China. A volume that should become required reading for all interested in Chinese society today.” —Julia C. Strauss, SOAS, University of London “Chinese Discourses on Happiness is a timely new collection of essays edited by two sinologists based in Britain, Gerda Wielander and Derek Hird. It explores how China’s propaganda machine devotes extraordinary efforts to promoting the idea that the Chinese people enjoy good and meaningful lives under Communism—precisely because economic growth alone does a poor job of generating happiness.” —The Economist
Publisher: Hong Kong University Press
ISBN: 9888455729
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 245
Book Description
Happiness is on China’s agenda. From Xi Jinping’s “Chinese Dream” to online chat forums, the conspicuous references to happiness are hard to miss. This groundbreaking volume analyzes how different social groups make use of the concept and shows how closely official discourses on happiness are intertwined with popular sentiments. The Chinese Communist Party’s attempts to define happiness and well-being around family-focused Han Chinese cultural traditions clearly strike a chord with the wider population. The collection highlights the links connecting the ideologies promoted by the government and the way they inform, and are in turn informed by, various deliberations and feelings circulating in the society. Contributors analyze the government’s “happiness maximization strategies,” including public service advertising campaigns, Confucian and Daoist-inflected discourses adapted for the self-help market, and the promotion of positive psychology as well as “happy housewives.” They also discuss forces countering the hegemonic discourse: different forms of happiness in the LGBTQ community, teachings of Tibetan Buddhism that subvert the material culture propagated by the government, and the cynical messages in online novels that expose the fictitious nature of propaganda. Collectively, the authors bring out contemporary Chinese voices engaging with different philosophies, practices, and idealistic imaginings on what it means to be happy. “This distinctive volume creates sustained dialogues around a substantive debate. Rejecting the conventional contrasts between China and the West, and yet deeply immersed in sinophone media, the authors understand Chinese discourse on happiness as multiple but interconnected conversations within a globally shared production of knowledge. Equally concerned with text and image, they exhibit an ethnographic eye as sharp as any orthodox ethnography.” —Deborah Davis, Yale University “Wielander and Hird have put together a superbly researched and thoughtfully written set of essays on the multiple ways in which that most elusive of all states—happiness—is understood and pursued in contemporary China. A volume that should become required reading for all interested in Chinese society today.” —Julia C. Strauss, SOAS, University of London “Chinese Discourses on Happiness is a timely new collection of essays edited by two sinologists based in Britain, Gerda Wielander and Derek Hird. It explores how China’s propaganda machine devotes extraordinary efforts to promoting the idea that the Chinese people enjoy good and meaningful lives under Communism—precisely because economic growth alone does a poor job of generating happiness.” —The Economist
Chinese Urbanism
Author: Mark Jayne
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1315505835
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 273
Book Description
This book provides a definitive overview of contemporary developments in our understanding of urban life in China. Multidisciplinary perspectives outline the most significant critical, theoretical, methodological and empirical developments in our appreciation of Chinese cities in the context of an increasingly globalized world. Each chapter includes reviews and appraisals of past and current theoretical development and embarks on innovative theoretical directions relating to Marxist, feminist, post-structural, post-colonial and ‘more-than-representational’ thinking. The book provides an in-depth insight into urban change and considers in what ways theoretical engagement with Chinese cities contributes to our understanding of ‘global urbanism’. Chapters explore how new critical perspectives on economic, political, social, spatial, emotional, embodied and affective practices add value to our understanding of urban life in, and beyond, China. Chinese Urbanism offers valuable insights which will be of interest to students and scholars alike working in geography, urban studies, Asian studies, economics, political studies and beyond.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1315505835
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 273
Book Description
This book provides a definitive overview of contemporary developments in our understanding of urban life in China. Multidisciplinary perspectives outline the most significant critical, theoretical, methodological and empirical developments in our appreciation of Chinese cities in the context of an increasingly globalized world. Each chapter includes reviews and appraisals of past and current theoretical development and embarks on innovative theoretical directions relating to Marxist, feminist, post-structural, post-colonial and ‘more-than-representational’ thinking. The book provides an in-depth insight into urban change and considers in what ways theoretical engagement with Chinese cities contributes to our understanding of ‘global urbanism’. Chapters explore how new critical perspectives on economic, political, social, spatial, emotional, embodied and affective practices add value to our understanding of urban life in, and beyond, China. Chinese Urbanism offers valuable insights which will be of interest to students and scholars alike working in geography, urban studies, Asian studies, economics, political studies and beyond.
Affective Societies
Author: Jan Slaby
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351039245
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 611
Book Description
Affect and emotion have come to dominate discourse on social and political life in the mobile and networked societies of the early 21st century. This volume introduces a unique collection of essential concepts for theorizing and empirically investigating societies as Affective Societies. The concepts promote insights into the affective foundations of social coexistence and are indispensable to comprehend the many areas of conflict linked to emotion such as migration, political populism, or local and global inequalities. Adhering to an instructive narrative, Affective Societies provides historical orientation; detailed explication of the concept in question, clear-cut research examples, and an outlook at the end of each chapter. Presenting interdisciplinary research from scholars within the Collaborative Research Center "Affective Societies," this insightful monograph will appeal to students and researchers interested in fields such as affect and emotion, anthropology, cultural studies, and media studies.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351039245
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 611
Book Description
Affect and emotion have come to dominate discourse on social and political life in the mobile and networked societies of the early 21st century. This volume introduces a unique collection of essential concepts for theorizing and empirically investigating societies as Affective Societies. The concepts promote insights into the affective foundations of social coexistence and are indispensable to comprehend the many areas of conflict linked to emotion such as migration, political populism, or local and global inequalities. Adhering to an instructive narrative, Affective Societies provides historical orientation; detailed explication of the concept in question, clear-cut research examples, and an outlook at the end of each chapter. Presenting interdisciplinary research from scholars within the Collaborative Research Center "Affective Societies," this insightful monograph will appeal to students and researchers interested in fields such as affect and emotion, anthropology, cultural studies, and media studies.
Prototype Nation
Author: Silvia M. Lindtner
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691204950
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 302
Book Description
A vivid look at China’s shifting place in the global political economy of technology production How did China’s mass manufacturing and “copycat” production become transformed, in the global tech imagination, from something holding the nation back to one of its key assets? Prototype Nation offers a rich transnational analysis of how the promise of democratized innovation and entrepreneurial life has shaped China’s governance and global image. With historical precision and ethnographic detail, Silvia Lindtner reveals how a growing distrust in Western models of progress and development, including Silicon Valley and the tech industry after the financial crisis of 2007–8, shaped the rise of the global maker movement and the vision of China as a “new frontier” of innovation. Lindtner’s investigations draw on more than a decade of research in experimental work spaces—makerspaces, coworking spaces, innovation hubs, hackathons, and startup weekends—in China, the United States, Africa, Europe, Taiwan, and Singapore, as well as in key sites of technology investment and industrial production—tech incubators, corporate offices, and factories. She examines how the ideals of the maker movement, to intervene in social and economic structures, served the technopolitical project of prototyping a “new” optimistic, assertive, and global China. In doing so, Lindtner demonstrates that entrepreneurial living influences governance, education, policy, investment, and urban redesign in ways that normalize the persistence of sexism, racism, colonialism, and labor exploitation. Prototype Nation shows that by attending to the bodies and sites that nurture entrepreneurial life, technology can be extricated from the seemingly endless cycle of promise and violence. Cover image: Courtesy of Cao Fei, Vitamin Creative Space and Sprüth Magers
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691204950
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 302
Book Description
A vivid look at China’s shifting place in the global political economy of technology production How did China’s mass manufacturing and “copycat” production become transformed, in the global tech imagination, from something holding the nation back to one of its key assets? Prototype Nation offers a rich transnational analysis of how the promise of democratized innovation and entrepreneurial life has shaped China’s governance and global image. With historical precision and ethnographic detail, Silvia Lindtner reveals how a growing distrust in Western models of progress and development, including Silicon Valley and the tech industry after the financial crisis of 2007–8, shaped the rise of the global maker movement and the vision of China as a “new frontier” of innovation. Lindtner’s investigations draw on more than a decade of research in experimental work spaces—makerspaces, coworking spaces, innovation hubs, hackathons, and startup weekends—in China, the United States, Africa, Europe, Taiwan, and Singapore, as well as in key sites of technology investment and industrial production—tech incubators, corporate offices, and factories. She examines how the ideals of the maker movement, to intervene in social and economic structures, served the technopolitical project of prototyping a “new” optimistic, assertive, and global China. In doing so, Lindtner demonstrates that entrepreneurial living influences governance, education, policy, investment, and urban redesign in ways that normalize the persistence of sexism, racism, colonialism, and labor exploitation. Prototype Nation shows that by attending to the bodies and sites that nurture entrepreneurial life, technology can be extricated from the seemingly endless cycle of promise and violence. Cover image: Courtesy of Cao Fei, Vitamin Creative Space and Sprüth Magers
Affective Architectures
Author: Jacque Micieli-Voutsinas
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429619030
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 304
Book Description
How do places manipulate our emotions? How are spaces affectious in their articulation and design? This book provides theoretical frameworks for exploring affective dimensions of architectural sites based on the notion that heritage, as an embodied experience, is embedded in places and spaces. Drawing together an interdisciplinary collection of essays spanning geographically diverse architectural sites — including Ford’s Theater, the site of President Lincoln’s assassination; the Estadio Nacional of Santiago, Chile, where 12,000 detainees were held following the ouster of President Salvador Allende; and Unit 731, the site of a biological and chemical warfare research unit of the Imperial Japanese army in Harbin, China, amongst others — this edited collection assembles critical dialogue amongst scholars and practitioners engaging in affective and other more-than-representational approaches to cultural memory, heritage, and identity-making. Broken into three main sections: Affective Politics; Embedded Geographies; and Affective Methodologies, this book draws together multidisciplinary perspectives from the arts, social sciences and humanities to understand the role of architecture in generating embodied experiences at places of memory. This book offers interdisciplinary perspectives on fundamental questions of memory, identity and space. It will be of interest to students and scholars in the fields of geography, architecture, cultural studies, and museum and heritage studies.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429619030
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 304
Book Description
How do places manipulate our emotions? How are spaces affectious in their articulation and design? This book provides theoretical frameworks for exploring affective dimensions of architectural sites based on the notion that heritage, as an embodied experience, is embedded in places and spaces. Drawing together an interdisciplinary collection of essays spanning geographically diverse architectural sites — including Ford’s Theater, the site of President Lincoln’s assassination; the Estadio Nacional of Santiago, Chile, where 12,000 detainees were held following the ouster of President Salvador Allende; and Unit 731, the site of a biological and chemical warfare research unit of the Imperial Japanese army in Harbin, China, amongst others — this edited collection assembles critical dialogue amongst scholars and practitioners engaging in affective and other more-than-representational approaches to cultural memory, heritage, and identity-making. Broken into three main sections: Affective Politics; Embedded Geographies; and Affective Methodologies, this book draws together multidisciplinary perspectives from the arts, social sciences and humanities to understand the role of architecture in generating embodied experiences at places of memory. This book offers interdisciplinary perspectives on fundamental questions of memory, identity and space. It will be of interest to students and scholars in the fields of geography, architecture, cultural studies, and museum and heritage studies.
The Making of Modern Korea
Author: Adrian Buzo
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1317422783
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 301
Book Description
This fully updated third edition of The Making of Modern Korea provides a thorough, balanced and engaging history of Korea from 1876 to the present day. The text is unique in analysing domestic developments in the two Koreas in the wider context of regional and international affairs. Key features of the book include: • Comprehensive coverage of Korean history. • Expanded coverage of social and cultural affairs. • A new chapter covering the end of the Choson Dynasty in the context of Japanese imperialist expansionism. • Up-to-date analysis of important contemporary developments in both Koreas, including assessments of the Kim Jong Il and Kim Jong Un administrations and the North’s nuclear weapons program. • Comparative focus on North and South Korea. • An examination of Korea within its regional context. • A detailed chronology and suggestions for further reading. The Making of Modern Korea is a valuable one-volume resource for students of modern Korean history, international politics and Asian Studies.
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1317422783
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 301
Book Description
This fully updated third edition of The Making of Modern Korea provides a thorough, balanced and engaging history of Korea from 1876 to the present day. The text is unique in analysing domestic developments in the two Koreas in the wider context of regional and international affairs. Key features of the book include: • Comprehensive coverage of Korean history. • Expanded coverage of social and cultural affairs. • A new chapter covering the end of the Choson Dynasty in the context of Japanese imperialist expansionism. • Up-to-date analysis of important contemporary developments in both Koreas, including assessments of the Kim Jong Il and Kim Jong Un administrations and the North’s nuclear weapons program. • Comparative focus on North and South Korea. • An examination of Korea within its regional context. • A detailed chronology and suggestions for further reading. The Making of Modern Korea is a valuable one-volume resource for students of modern Korean history, international politics and Asian Studies.
Unknotting the Heart
Author: Jie Yang
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 0801456177
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 284
Book Description
Since the mid-1990s, as China has downsized and privatized its state-owned enterprises, severe unemployment has created a new class of urban poor and widespread social and psychological disorders. In Unknotting the Heart, Jie Yang examines this understudied group of workers and their experiences of being laid off, "counseled," and then reoriented to the market economy. Using fieldwork from reemployment programs, community psychosocial work, and psychotherapy training sessions in Beijing between 2002 and 2013, Yang highlights the role of psychology in state-led interventions to alleviate the effects of mass unemployment. She pays particular attention to those programs that train laid-off workers in basic psychology and then reemploy them as informal "counselors" in their capacity as housemaids and taxi drivers. These laid-off workers are filling a niche market created by both economic restructuring and the shortage of professional counselors in China, helping the government to defuse intensified class tension and present itself as a nurturing and kindly power. In reality, Yang argues, this process creates both new political complicity and new conflicts, often along gender lines. Women are forced to use the moral virtues and work ethics valued under the former socialist system, as well as their experiences of overcoming depression and suffering, as resources for their new psychological care work. Yang focuses on how the emotions, potentials, and "hearts" of these women have become sites of regulation, market expansion, and political imagination.
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 0801456177
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 284
Book Description
Since the mid-1990s, as China has downsized and privatized its state-owned enterprises, severe unemployment has created a new class of urban poor and widespread social and psychological disorders. In Unknotting the Heart, Jie Yang examines this understudied group of workers and their experiences of being laid off, "counseled," and then reoriented to the market economy. Using fieldwork from reemployment programs, community psychosocial work, and psychotherapy training sessions in Beijing between 2002 and 2013, Yang highlights the role of psychology in state-led interventions to alleviate the effects of mass unemployment. She pays particular attention to those programs that train laid-off workers in basic psychology and then reemploy them as informal "counselors" in their capacity as housemaids and taxi drivers. These laid-off workers are filling a niche market created by both economic restructuring and the shortage of professional counselors in China, helping the government to defuse intensified class tension and present itself as a nurturing and kindly power. In reality, Yang argues, this process creates both new political complicity and new conflicts, often along gender lines. Women are forced to use the moral virtues and work ethics valued under the former socialist system, as well as their experiences of overcoming depression and suffering, as resources for their new psychological care work. Yang focuses on how the emotions, potentials, and "hearts" of these women have become sites of regulation, market expansion, and political imagination.