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Public space and affect: Political sensibilities, biographical narratives and emotional framing in China

L’espace public affecté. Sensibilité politique, narrations biographiques et cadrage émotionnel en Chine
Marie Bellot
p. 81-101

Abstracts

The division between public and private spaces is particularly tenuous in contemporary China, in particular due to measures governing social space. Some government techniques here consist of incorporating or associating individual initiatives with institutions emanating from the state. In this way, together with the constrained political context, the public dimension of activities held in certain public spaces can be particularly sensitive. In such cases, strategies such as emotional framing may be used not to eliminate the political charge as such, but to reduce its overly sensitive nature. The work of emotions, then, appears to be twofold: on the one hand, it allows us to frame speeches around individual narrations centred on particular affectivities; second, in so doing it partially reduces the political charge that can be produced in the public spaces in question. However this process does not obliterate any political dimension of these spaces. Indeed, the emotional narratives allow us to shift from the individual to the collective, and thus participate in producing something political.

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Introduction

  • 1 This is the name used by those who founded the space, and how it was referred from then on. It is u (...)

1The process of “reforms and opening” of the economy in China has paved the way for the emergence both of new practices in consumption and leisure as well as new venues for these activities. At the same time, the evolution of the socialist institutions —particularly in relation to the control of individuals and their free time— has also contributed to the development of a bigger range of social spaces. Private —or free— time during the Maoist era was organised to accommodate work, but things have now been rearranged to make way for practices, allocation of time, and spaces which rely less heavily on institutional regulation of individuals and bodies. In urban China, we thus see a pluralisation in the practices and spaces dedicated to free time. The easing up of productive time for certain social categories, as permitted by the reforms and liberalisation of the economy, is also affecting student populations. As such, students and young graduates are gravitating towards spaces and practices that fall outside the notion of a productive use of time. It was in this context that a “youth space” (qingnian kongian 青年空)1 was established in Beijing in 2011 by twelve educated young people (i.e., people who had graduated from higher education). Some of them were coming to the end of their university studies, while others were already working. The group was motivated by the desire to create a space where people could debate, exchange ideas and experiences, and even life. In sum, to make a space which incorporates two elements. In terms of time, they want to be outside of both “productive” time and also personal, domestic time. But more fundamentally, they want to provide a space where people can consider a range of topics, but with a particular focus on social and political matters. Other similar spaces were then established in big university cities in the years that followed.

2One evening in January 2014, feminist activists organised an evening in the “youth space” in Beijing. They presented their activist projects, and personal experiences, and held a debate on related issues. Both during the presentations where speakers talked about their own lives, and also during the discussions that followed, most of those who spoke did so with emotion, describing experiences of personal suffering. This was despite the fact that the event —a presentation and debate— and the context, with the audience made up of individuals who did not really know each other, would not have suggested there would be this level of emotional expression. It was not the first time that a high level of emotion was present in this space. Similar things had happened previously during interactions between small groups of two or more individuals, however then it was not in such a broad way, nor in front of an audience. This means of presenting a narrative of suffering in front of an audience, and in a public space, is not, however, a recent phenomenon in the PRC (People’s Republic of China). The sharing of stories called “suku” (诉苦) —literally “story of bitterness”— was the practice of telling “of one’s suffering, or to pour out one’s bitterness, in public” (Sun 2012: 2), which already existed in the 1950s. The aim of this political tool was to help build a “new society” to replace the “old feudal society”, and these practices also helped people identify as a certain social class (Guo & Sun 2002). Subsequently, contemporary practices based on the expression of personal suffering developed in China and elsewhere, based on the idea of putting things into words in the form of a “therapeutic discourse” (Illouz 2006). The same is true of the practice of “tanxin 谈心”—the name literally meaning “speaking from the heart”, or “talking heart to heart”. Used for political purposes, in particular to appease people with complaints, the expression also hints at a dialogue between the state and the masses with the aim of gauging public opinion. This was used in particularly by psycho-social workers as a tool for therapy when working with workers who had been made unemployed, with the purpose of helping them realise their potential for productivity. More broadly, the concept invites us to reconsider the idea that the post-socialist Chinese state is actually more respectful of the boundaries of people’s private space (Yang 2015).

3At the same time, empirical analysis undermines any idea that there is a clear division between public and private spaces. In post-socialist societies in Asia, such divisions have been reduced, notably because public spaces have been used for private purposes, and due to intervention in private spaces by the state and state agents (Yang 2015). In China, this distinction is also undermined by the institutional structure which allows the state to absorb organisations even if they have not directly developed within its remit (Doyon 2019). The interweaving of the public and private spheres is thus rendered more complex by the negotiations between official socialist institutions and private organisations. These interrelationships give the authorities the right, to a greater or lesser extent, to inspect and observe local initiatives, depending both on the local situations as well as the broader political context (Thireau 2013).

4In this context, actors use different tactics (De Certeau 1980: 60–63) to be less visible to the authorities who are behind the network of measures of control, and also to render discourse accessible to a public outside the inner circles of the social movements (Mathieu 2012). But how do these more everyday forms of resistance function? And how can we understand them in relation to the surveillance practices put in place by the public authorities? How can we analyse the subtle practices which are also used as tactics to contest, distract or penalise the relationships of majority power? And, finally, given this context, what should we make of the situation on the ground as described above?

5In situations where numerous regulations govern social space, there also exist strategies which do not dismantle the political load as such, but which limit its potential to make an overly sensitive impact. One such strategy is the framing of emotions. There are two aspects to working through emotions. On the one hand, this strategy enables a discussion to be framed by means of individual narratives that focus on specific types of emotionality. In doing so, it partially diffuses the political charge which might be produced in the spaces in question. We can thus advance the hypothesis that in social spaces which are subject to focused attention from public institutions, the biographical narrative and the framing of situations which happen in particular through emotions allow us to see control and resistance as being one and the same. To support this idea, we will first show how these “youth spaces” exemplify the pluralisation of leisure practices and spaces, while demonstrating the reinforcement of personal narratives, and also serving as spaces with a high level of social regulation. In the face of the state’s right to inspection, the reliance on personal narratives and repeating of emotions indicate a dual task. For as the process mitigates the political charge of the narratives while reassuring the public authorities, it also makes it possible for commonalities between different narratives to come to the fore. This is a point which we will develop in the second part of the article.

Public space, young graduates’ personal narratives, and the regulation of social space

Young graduates, the pluralisation of leisure practices, and personal narratives

6In the “youth spaces”, the location for our fieldwork, two processes are highlighted that are currently happening in China: on the one hand, a pluralisation in leisure practices and spaces for these, and, on the other, the strengthening of personal narratives. These leisure spaces were established as places dedicated to non-productive time, and were intended in particular to be spaces for self-expression. The sharing of experiences, especially people’s professional and personal experience, is at the heart of the youth space mission and is particularly informed by the sociology of the groups in question.

  • 2 Douban 豆瓣 is an internet site launched in 2005 which allows users registered on the platform to mak (...)

7They are open apartments that provide a dedicated venue for conferences, debates, screenings, or even just a place to “hang out”. They are located in university districts in major Chinese metropolises since the people who are most interested in coming there are students with relatively flexible schedules as well as young graduates, some of whom are already familiar with these neighbourhoods. The first “youth space” was established in Beijing in 2011, meaning these are relatively new structures, and for now are only found in large cities in China. Yet although this is not yet a widespread practice —with only one or two “youth spaces” in each of fifteen major Chinese cities— nonetheless thousands of individuals are interested in these places. For example, on its Douban 豆瓣 website,2 Beijing’s “youth space” lists over 6,000 “interested” people. On average, a few dozen people visit each space in person every day, with some regulars alongside others who come just from time to time. Our field research revealed an important trend, albeit to varying degrees, namely the presence of a certain uncertainty and political sensitivity in these spaces, both in terms of people’s actions and in the social interactions. So, for example, some people who at times were privileged informants, at other times added a clear bias in what they were saying, or simply omitted things, because of a real or perceived sensitivity to a certain discourse or situations. This issue was critical in determining how we conducted our investigation, and also in how we presented ourselves and how we were represented in the field. The methodology therefore draws on relatively long periods of ethnographic observation. This was essential in order to gain the necessary confidence, and involved spending a long period in places that, while not inherently sensitive spaces, can become so at times and thus turn into “mined” land (Albera 2001). As venues for speech and discussion, these spaces required us to build a level of confidence with the respondents so they might be induced to address topics of a more intimate nature. Concretely, this long-term presence was reflected in three stints of fieldwork: from the end of December 2012 to May 2013, from November 2013 to June 2014, and from September 2014 to January 2015. The ethnographic observations, which were highly necessary to transcribe the accounts of people’s prior experiences, were supplemented by fifty-one biographical interviews with young workers who came to these spaces and were involved with them to a greater or lesser extent (including founding members, volunteers, and people who visit more or less regularly). All of the interviewees had graduated from higher education and were between the ages of 22 and 35. Gaining access to their personal stories enabled us to uncover certain sociological characteristics of the population group which was important especially for understanding the personal narratives. Indeed, it is hard to think of young skilled workers in China without also thinking of the pressure they are under to succeed both professionally and personally (Roulleau-Berger & Yan 2017).

  • 3 Not all of our respondents worked in Beijing, and some were in Chongqing or Wuhan, but the majority (...)

8The processes of privatisation in China cannot only be attributed to market activities. They also relate to a set of economic gains that take precedence over the private self, following a logic that turns individuals into their own entrepreneurs (Zhang & Ong 2008). Indeed, self-expression becomes even stronger when it is highly recommended (Kleinman et al. 2011). The people who frequent “youth spaces” are particularly subservient to these ways of thinking. They are students and skilled workers, and during their first years on the labour market most of them changed jobs frequently, or even moved between different sectors, while also being highly mobile within China. The people interviewed generally have skilled jobs in the new technologies, social, education or cultural sectors and most of them are part of the trend towards upward social mobility. However, this phenomenon is rather complex. The vast majority of the interviewees have salaries that are relatively low with regard to their qualifications and the cities where they work.3 There is thus a discrepancy between the interviewees’ career aspirations and the salaries they envisaged having while at school and university. This, together with the very low level of job security they obtain and their low salaries, paints a contrasting picture of upwards social mobility. Such people are sometimes heralded as “personal failures” (Peugny 2009) against a background of social inequalities which are more readily ascribed to individual failure rather than an unfair economic structure (Whyte 2010). Such attempts at upwards social mobility are forged around labour markets requiring a very strong individualisation (Kleinman et al. 2011) and they go together with the “fatigue of being oneself” (Ehrenberg 1998). These are all elements which emerge from the stories told by these young graduates when they present themselves. However, these processes are not solely the result of a neoliberal state. They are also intertwined with the current forms of government in China —with a cross between privatisation and socialist rules, and within certain forms of neoliberalism (Zhang & Ong 2008)— which are particularly present in the spaces in question here.

Public space and social regulation

9The “youth spaces” have certain features; for example, they are open to a wide audience, theoretically accessible to everyone, and their events are visible publicly (indeed the activities of the “youth space” in Beijing are advertised via its page on the Douban website and the content of some events is transcribed in detail). These characteristics, and the socialisations that take place in these spaces, go beyond what Hannerz (1980) described as “minimal interactions” in urban areas. In this sense, this is an argument for categorising these as public spaces if we follow the basic definition of an intermediate domain between nation state and private sphere (Habermas 1988; Honneth 2015). This definition, however, is not watertight as it encompasses a large number of situations and indeed the term itself has a certain polysemy. Moreover, the principal Habermassian conceptualisation has also been widely questioned, particularly as it is exclusionary in many respects, and thus both elitist and gendered (Fraser 1992). Others have thus transcended this framework by proposing conceptualisations such as oppositional public space (Negt 2007) or plebeian public spaces (Breaugh 2013). The key here is above all not to assume that public space is a neutral space where situations simply happen, but instead we must take a dynamic approach with respect to the actions and experiences that form and play out in a space (Capitant & Leclerc-Olive 2013).

  • 4 The Chinese term is shalong , in a phonetic transposition of the French name.
  • 5 We distinguish here between politics and political regimes, within the global context of the “recom (...)
  • 6 The “letters and visits” administration is an institution for complaints where citizens can raise g (...)
  • 7 In this context, the term caogen 草根 is often used as a direct literal translation of the English “g (...)

10“Youth spaces” are venues where young people socialise and gather, most of them graduates between the ages of 20 and 35. The desire for spaces like these is nothing new. In the 1980s “salons”4 were already being established, bringing together young researchers and young civil servants in particular. Yet while the salons of the 1980s were created with the aim of political reform (Béja 1992), the modern “youth spaces” focus on a variety of activities. Some of these activities are certainly political,5 but they may also be cultural, or even more personal, especially those that focus simply on exchanging experiences of life and work. The spaces may also offer people accommodation, with the rooms of the apartments being transformed into dormitories. The construction of a continuum between public and private space thus depends on the individuals who come, both in terms of their personal situation and their own private space, and also in terms of whether they take on more or less prominent roles during the debates and conferences. In turn, the same space may be judged as being either public or private, and people’s justifications for coming to the place may fall into one or the other category. This porous identity is even more evident because it is embedded in a post-socialist institutional environment. Contemporary China in general has a tenuous division between public and private space. Has the overflowing of the private into public space been mirrored by the state’s penetration into these spaces? While “youth spaces” are complex, and are not merely venues for talking and discussions, they do also partly take on that function. As such, they echo mechanisms established by national political authorities to gradually introduce schemes for “direct participation”. This is true, for example, of the so-called “letters and visits” administration (Thireau & Hua 2010),6 which provides hotlines aimed primarily at migrant workers, which have developed within neighbourhood communities, trade unions or administrations dealing with work-related problems. The spread of power relations within indirect modes of government (Hibou 1999) means that social organisations, NGOs and social movements can thus become “citizens of public policy” (Camau & Massardier 2009) even though these social forms themselves represent attempts both to resist and support public policies. As a result, a “grey zone” is developing where many social activities can happen with a certain autonomy (Bergère 2013: 155). During the Maoist era, many cultural and social activities were set up by the state. By organising these leisure activities, the public authorities retained a right to observe, and therefore control, the content. The period of reform has led to changes in this field. Some of these activities disappeared, creating a gap which has been filled by private actors who offer commercial activities. However, these activities are very expensive for social classes who are less able to spend much money on leisure, and this explains why there are now moves to organise activities independently. This also leads civil actors to regain control over social spaces dedicated to leisure (Qian 2014), as is the case for the venues studied here which were intended to offer a non-commercial space where people can spend time outside work. However, these spaces and activities are not completely separate from institutional structures. Attempts to incorporate or associate private organisations within state-owned institutions point to how social space is being regulated. “Youth spaces” are the result of local initiatives7 which, however, tend to be incorporated into party organisations (Li 2008).

  • 8 The term minjian refers to anything that is not part of an official structure.
  • 9 Apart from activities such as debates and presentations by activists, the “youth spaces” are part o (...)

11Indeed, not content with focusing on the missions which are traditionally their domain, the mass party organisations also have varying degrees of close relations with numerous other organisations (Doyon 2019). This enables them to use a form of co-optation to regulate social space. This government technique consists of allowing individual initiatives to emerge independently and then placing them under the patronage of a party organisation. Various forms of this technique can be found, and are part of a broader focus which both allows for public services to be delegated and also for activities to be regulated. In Beijing, members of the Communist Youth League thus tried to make contact with the “youth space” and suggested that the two structures could work together to organise activities within a framework whereby the “youth space” would fall under the guardianship of the Communist Youth League. As the invitation came from a government organisation, it was declined, and the individuals contacted by the League suggested that they wanted to act carefully, taking a more discreet approach in order to maintain their independence and identity as a “civil society” organisation (minjian zuzhi 间组织8). This attempt to turn an organisation such as Beijing’s “youth space” into a sub-organisation of the Communist Youth League is far from exceptional. By making use of these archetypal “student volunteers” for activities within sectors where the Communist Youth League is also active,9 such an organisation could easily find its place in the mass network of youth organisations, while responding to the process of managing and controlling social space (Audin & Doyon 2019).

  • 10 These organisations are not, however, free from the process of repression. In January 2006, the sup (...)
  • 11 Appearing in the 27 April 2016 edition of the “China Youth Daily” (Zhongguo qingnian bao 中国青年), th (...)

12The space has set aside any idea of being incorporated into a government organisation, whether through the Youth League or another organisation, thus revealing the lack of trust both in structures emanating from the public sphere and towards the former socialist institutions (Li, Shen & Sun 2006). This can also turn to ambivalence regarding the right of public authorities to inspect the space as evidenced by an article in the China Youth Daily (the official body of the Communist Youth League of China10) on the “youth space” in Beijing.11 Why authorise an article yet refuse any longer-term association? It is difficult to know the terms of these negotiations or the story behind them, especially given that there is huge uncertainty in terms of what will and will not be tolerated. While some areas are prohibited and clearly cannot be touched upon, the limits of what can and cannot be done from a political standpoint remain very uncertain (Stern & O’Brien 2011). Local initiatives are also linked to the authorities through mutual dependence. In normal times, the right to observe things can be less relevant and then become more present depending on specific conflicts or the broader political context (Thireau 2013: 169–175). It is possible to credit the article for publicising the space, and portraying a very specific angle of the space’s collective life, while at the same time not reporting on activities that seem more political. These choices may also simply be related to the fact that it is difficult for a space to refuse a demand of this sort.

13These institutional links become visible through the approaches made by recognised public organisations, and they attest to relationships that reflect both a sort of complicity and invisible competition. They also reveal the desire of public bodies to regulate these spaces. At the same time, it is not possible to contemplate these social spaces without taking these regulations into account, unless we erase the subjective dimensions of the actors present. It was for this reason that Wang Shaoguang (1995) considered private time and leisure spaces as a political issue on the grounds that control and resistance come to a head in these spaces and temporalities, and are negotiated there.

Political control and resistance: The dual work of emotions

14The analysis of emotions is increasingly important in the social sciences (Hochschild 1979, 1997; Illouz 2006; Yang 2014, 2015) and also in analyses of social factors which regard emotions as constituent parts of social processes rather than mere physiological impulses (Hochschild 1997). Moreover, emotion can allow us to question some of these processes and to better understand an actual situation on the ground (Pettier 2016). The fact that there is surprise in the face of people’s public displays of emotion in the spaces we are studying here allows us to question processes which might otherwise be neglected, and thus to understand the role and dynamics which these emotions play in relation to public experience. This is a space where people have the right to self-expression (Bhabha 2003) and where narratives of suffering are becoming more common (Illouz 2006; Yang 2014, 2015). In this context, the emotions that accompany people’s sharing of their personal narratives mark the fact that these individuals are affected by something which is identified as being “social” (Martuccelli 2017). They thus blur the clear distinction between public and private affairs, and also between biographical and intimate narratives on the one hand, and public or social issues on the other. Different distinctions between affect and emotion have been put forward. The former can be seen as falling within the field of intense bodily sensations, and the capacity to be moved by something while the latter falls in the field of narrative and feelings which are presented socially (Massumi 2002: 35–36). Methodologically, however, it is difficult to grasp this distinction through ethnographic observations (White 2014: 101), and so we prefer to use “emotion” or “affect” in a generic way, in the sense of a bodily or somatic manifestation without which nothing is left “but a cold and neutral intellectual state” (Dechaux 2015).

15Finally, it is difficult to view emotions about politics in an objective way and this prevented such emotions from being included in analyses until they began to be considered more broadly, starting from the 2000s (Jasper 2011). Researchers have also pointed to the heuristic aspect of the analysis here, more generally as an element to be mobilised rather than as an element of mobilisation in social movements (Latté 2015). In their political work, intermediary organisations, political parties, trade unions, and associations can thus give meaning to these emotions, either to get people to act in a certain way (Sommier 2015) or by serving as a “device to raise awareness” (Traïni 2009). Conclusions of this nature also invite us to consider possible links between emotions and politics in the present case. Do they also serve as a “device to raise awareness”? Here the answer seems less clear-cut.

Biographical narratives and transformation of action frames

It’s about 7.00 pm. There are a surprising number of people present this Saturday evening in the “youth space”. The Chinese New Year holiday has begun, the neighbourhood has emptied out. Yet the living room is full. There are chairs everywhere, with even more people standing at the back. At a guess, there’s about forty or fifty people, with slightly more women than men. On the program this evening are some young feminist activists who have come to present the themes of their struggles and their means of action. This is supposed to be followed by a discussion. As usual, the people here seem to be roughly between 20 and 35 years old. [...] Four of them have come to make presentations. They first show a video about feminism, and then some photos of collective protests by different feminist groups in China, and they end by referring to Pussy Riot. The young women on the “stage” —although there is no actual, physical stage— speak one after the other, talking for different amounts of time, presenting their personal journeys, including certain events that, one imagines, they have selected out of a range of other experiences. The responses that follow from the audience also offer an opportunity for people to present personal stories (Excerpt from field notes, 11 January 2014).

16These personal narratives which are presented in front of an audience should be seen in the current context of people’s right to narrate, to use Homi Bhabha’s phrasing, or their enunciative right. That is,

the dialogical right to address and be addressed, to share meaning and be interpreted, to speak and to be heard, to make a sign and to know that one will receive respectful attention (Bhabha 2003: 34).

17The words of the first woman, an activist from a Cantonese lesbian women’s rights organisation, evoke a family scene, more than twenty years ago, in an average city in central China.

  • 12 This excerpt, and those that follow, are all transcripts of discussions which happened that evening

I was born into that family, into this family where the birth of a daughter was not what was expected. Some parents would have preferred to have a boy, but can adapt to having a little girl. Not mine. The storm caused by the birth of a female has not subsided over time. My mother got many comments, more or less vicious, blaming her for this birth. It was so much that she almost left the family home when I was little, almost leaving everything behind, including me. In the end she stayed, and that was the atmosphere I grew up in. Nonetheless I was still able to go to university, and in those years, I started to become conscious of this profound injustice, this chaos, and what did I have to thank for this, in fact? The fact that I was born a girl. […] 12

  • 13 Throughout the evening, people’s membership of the various activist organisations and networks were (...)

18The second woman then continues. She initiated a group for cooperation, founded in 2012, that focuses on strategizing and campaigning for marginalised sexual minority groups. The group focuses on gender equality, breaking down gender barriers and building alliances beyond identity politics. She also works with organisations fighting against domestic violence. Like the previous speaker, however, she does not talk about these commitments here,13 but instead just tells her personal story, in particular to explain why she belongs to a feminist group. She recounts how her parents’ siblings already had children when her mother fell pregnant.

My uncles and aunts all had daughters. My grandfather absolutely wanted to have a grandson. The whole family was only waiting for this one thing. So it was as if I wasn’t born, like I didn’t exist... The family pressure remained the same, from my grandfather to my parents, from them to me. It was this pressure that pushed me to get involved.

19The further she gets in telling her story, the harder she finds it. She can’t get her words out sometimes, and she’s on the edge of tears. A third woman speaks next. She is a member of Beijing’s gay centre, co-founder of a feminist film festival and an activist against domestic violence, but again, none of these aspects of her biography are mentioned. Then, it is the audience’s turn to speak. A first young woman immediately stands up in the middle of the group of forty people. She starts by thanking the speakers for sharing their personal stories, photos, actions, and for the way in which this resonates with her own current situation. She’s originally from a small town; her father is an accountant and her mother a teacher. She is 34 years old and has a bachelor’s degree in management. Despite pressure from those around her she is not married. Not because she hasn’t met anyone yet, but because she feels fulfilled by her work and so that takes up a lot of time; because she feels fine like this... adding that it doesn’t really matter. “But it’s hard. And tonight’s comments make me feel less alone, less isolated, and actually, even quite legitimate”. The other comments are of a similar ilk.

  • 14 For example, according to a 2012 survey conducted in the cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Canton and Sh (...)

20The different discriminations and inequalities which these young women evoke are not incompatible with a social context marked by gender inequalities. The Chinese state certainly supports the development of women’s rights, both with an eye to moving into the ranks of the most powerful nations and out of a wish for more “harmonious” social development. However, these desires have neither put to rest the gender inequalities nor the imaginary associated with them. There have been improvements in terms of education (Attané 2012) as can be seen from the qualifications of the people in the study. However the situation for women’s rights remains deeply paradoxical, with improvements in some areas accompanied by growing inequalities in others. In terms of employment, the rate of employment of women in China is still high compared to that of most countries, yet in real terms it is actually declining. The waves of redundancies in state-owned enterprises offer one explanation for this decline of the employment of women in cities. Although they may not be any more likely than men to be fired, women find it harder to find employment again after they lose their job. Between 1990 and 2010, not only did rates of employment amongst urban women decline, but women also saw their salaries increase more slowly than men’s salaries (Attané 2012). Women graduates are also under pressure to get married, as some have mentioned. The fact that they are not married was rendered particularly visible by the creation of a category of “leftover women” (shengnü 剩女) to refer to unmarried female graduates from the age of 25 and upwards. These women are the subject of television programs which, while painting a normative picture of the characteristics of the “leftover women”, also suggest that it is a problem for women to be single, especially when this is associated with upward social mobility (Luo & Sun 2015). When women are married, economic inequalities also persist as they have less access to property ownership, even though they make a significant contribution to the purchase of real estate and/or in financing the couple’s daily expenses (Hong Fincher 2014).14

  • 15 The All-China Women’s Federation is the Chinese Communist Party organisation which is in charge of (...)

21The young women leading the debate and presenting their actions are activists from NGOs and feminist networks who have been able to advance in conjunction with the development of women’s rights issues in Chinese institutions. This process really took off starting in 1995, when the World Conference on Women was held in Beijing. Since then, the situation of feminism in China has been characterised by a strong impulse from the state, but these debates have not been limited to public organisations. The party institutions that are in charge of issues related to the place of women are significant here. Nevertheless, the plurality of actors and paths within these institutions allows us to see the cracks, gaps and disputes, as well as the divergent aims and interests that play out within the intricacies of the state apparatus (Wang Zheng 2005, 2010). In addition, the work of mass organisations such as the All-China Women’s Federation15 has made it possible to open up space in this respect, and consequently enabled NGOs and active women’s rights networks to develop (Angeloff & Lieber 2012). These in particular are represented by activists at the “youth space”, and these women have significant political resources. Those members of the “youth space” who are in charge of organising such events also have similar resources at their disposal. Beijing’s “youth space” often hosts stakeholders from sensitive social or political organisations and the founders of the place therefore have quite a clear overview of activist networks and are sensitive to potential censorship or other political controls.

22The decision to focus on biographical stories thus did not happen by accident. This tactic makes it possible to focus again on the private and individual sphere, coming back to issues that otherwise might be considered a public or collective matter. The audience are not surprised by how the evening turns out. Indeed, the online description of that evening’s event clearly indicated that the exchange will centre on the personal stories of each participant:

  • 16 Excerpt from the presentation of the evening. The emphasis is our own.

They will come to share their understanding of this with everyone, but in the knowledge that we are not in a classroom here; there is no higher authority, but rather the idea is for discussions to touch everyone starting from our personal experiences.16

23By emphasising personal stories instead of the four guests’ work as activists, the organisers help transform the frames of the action. Indeed, the primary framework here —i.e., what makes it possible in a given situation to render “what would otherwise be a meaningless aspect of the scene into something that is meaningful” (Goffman [1974]: 30)— is that of a debate on the definition of feminism. The transformation takes place within the possible “protest” aspect of the interactions. The young women who are speaking are indeed recognised activists, and all come from a network formed on the basis of struggles and mobilisations and it is for this reason that they have been invited. These women, like the organisers, are members of the “youth space”, and they are exhausted by their experience of political constraints and censorship and of the multi-layered task of adapting, redefining their actions and terms and how these are presented. Together with the organisers, the women have steered the evening in a direction in accordance with these political constraints. The frames are thus transformed in the sense that, although the situation bears a certain resemblance to what is happening in the primary frame, it also acquires a different meaning. In the situation presented here, the discussion centring on personal experiences is not only an exchange per se. It is also a means both of keeping the public authorities at a distance and, hypothetically, reassuring the authorities as to what is happening in these spaces. The organisers and speakers are not powerful enough to shape people’s emotions. However, by centring biographical narratives amongst the stories of collective actions, and by pointing out the sufferings in these biographies, both the organisers and speakers create a frame for the action that enables the political burden to be reduced.

Political sensitivity, “emotional management” and emotional framing of discussions

24Since the 1980s, there has been a renewed emphasis on discourse which focuses on the narrative of one’s own suffering, in particular through support groups, television shows, interest in therapy, etc. As these events became more commonplace, narratives of suffering have evolved into a means of self-expression and expressing one’s feelings (Illouz 2006: 106), and this is the type of storytelling which prevails here. Issues of politics, collective action and theory related to feminism are not mentioned much in the debate following the presentations. Instead, the discussion centres on people’s expressions of their personal suffering related to gender and gender inequalities. After the activists’ presentations, and following the contribution of the first 34-year-old woman, a second woman speaks:

  • 17 We have highlighted the two utterances in italics.

Well, as for me, I probably won’t talk too much about myself, I mean not too much about my personal experience. But I want to say something here because I am moved tonight by what you have all shown us. There were those pictures of women in black T-shirts who were protesting against violence against women. And you quickly mentioned some numbers, and the presentation, and then, well, for me all thisit makes me feel something.17 Seeing this, I realise that I’ve not been paying attention to it before, but I must have met loads of women who suffered domestic violence during my life. Maybe even..., I mean, I don’t really know how to explain it, but now, when I think about it now, after listening to you, it seems to me that I’ve also suffered discrimination because I was a girl, a woman, and it’s just that I didn’t think about it before, I... That’s all.

25In the spaces in question, the frame in which emotions are expressed is not benign. It may border on “emotional management” (Hochschild 1979) —that is to say, a set of actions that involve highlighting or also silencing certain feelings in order to make them appropriate to a situation. This management happens in the situation and demonstrates a relationship with the space which fundamentally differentiates between actions within the “youth spaces” and those outside. It is thus possible to recognise two time frames in the presentation. First, there is the presentation of collective actions in which the four activists participated, which mostly happened in public space. One of the photos shows seven young women seen from behind (see Figure 1). Each of them has attached a Chinese character to the back of their black T-shirt, with the seven characters together making up the phrase “Zero tolerance for domestic violence”. Photos of other group actions are also shown. The actions of the four activists presented in the first phase relate to situations in which their negative emotions were one of the things that inspired them to participate in collective action. These actions are spurred on by a process of conversion, or “emotional management”, whereby negative affects —such as anger or shame— are transformed into an incentive for action (Gould 2002).

26The second phase centres on the presentation of the personal stories of each speaker, and here we find another process of “emotional management” at work. The demonstration of the collective protests is very brief, and quickly shifts into biographical narratives and the demonstration of suffering. Here the earlier process is now reversed. The anger which has inspired collective protests amongst other things must now be converted into statements drawing on a register of sadness or other negative emotions that are assumed to provide less of an incentive for action. Far from being spontaneous outbursts, the affect here therefore indeed relates to constructed social processes. In this context, the construction helps frame the situation and thereby mitigate any political sensitivity that such a presentation might otherwise have.

Figure 1. Feminist protest against domestic violence

Figure 1. Feminist protest against domestic violence

Photograph of a feminist protest organised by some activists who came that night.

© 权之声 nüquan zhi sheng

  • 18 Here we use the term coined by Danilo Martuccelli who by “social life” meant the “intrinsic and ine (...)

27By focusing on individual narratives and emotions which are seen as less likely to encourage collective actions, the event is able to be less sensitive politically. This does not, however, prevent things from shifting towards other forms of politics, as in what Lauren Berlant terms “juxtapolitical” in the context of women’s recriminations. Such criticisms often emerge adjacent to politics, particularly through emotional expression, rather than existing directly in the political sphere which is seen as being more likely to reproduce the conditions of its objective superiority rather than serving the well-being of ordinary people (Berlant 2008: 3). This staging of events, and demonstration of social factors that happen to the community, in a social context,18 relies both on a way of being affected, and also the idea of a kind of self-reflection. Another person speaks in the audience:

Well I think what I want to say here is different again. If I’ve understood right, you say that seeing these photos, and the big topics that are being addressed here, that these are things we do not hear much about normally, at least I’m saying what I thought I understood you to say, so this is both something which makes you feel things, and at the same time maybe makes you ask yourself questions. So yes, there’s that, but for me there’s also the fact that I’ve heard all four of you talk about your personal stories. Each of them was different, and four may not be a huge number, but together it inevitably raises questions. For myself, I could identify with certain parts of your story, and others in yours. And then with other things I didn’t so much. But it resonated in some ways, and that’s, hmm, that’s already something, right.

28In these two contributions we find social themes —here domestic violence or discrimination against women in particular— being interwoven with biographical experience. Biographical narratives are not a means of shutting down the debate on the individual. On the contrary, such stories are a part of political and social issues. Telling such stories in front of an audience thus marks a moment when the masks come off (Freire 2017). The uniqueness of one individual’s journey is affirmed and activated when combined and contrasted with other stories from the audience. The acts of observing a collective, shedding light on discriminations, and coming back to individual experiences are thus intertwined. The use of self-narrativity also becomes a way to weave together different continuums with these public issues. They represent an “implicating affectivity” (Martuccelli 2017), that is to say, the ability to be concerned and affected by social issues in a personal way.

  • 19 Here Eva Illouz means the fact that individuals use “the same cultural structure to give meaning to (...)

29The four activists were very emotional during the presentations. These stories functioned as a signal providing a frame for the situation by means of an intimate public sphere. Indeed, the stories contain views and emotional knowledge resulting from shared experiences (such as gender discrimination or marriage pressure), thus allowing experiences to be shared in spite of the audience’s diversity of social status, social roles and professional background (Berlant 2008). In return, the visceral overflowing of emotions that follows as numerous individuals in the public speak out can then be understood as a result of these “framing effects”. While the presentation was punctuated with stories from individuals who were emotional, the moment is also marked by the use of affective language. The affects are thus also the result of these framings and lend a collective legitimacy to this kind of discourse (Dechaux 2015: 13–14). What enables the individuals present that evening to speak with emotion is the presence of the “cultural resources”19 which allow the speakers’ emotions to function (Illouz 2006: 129). When they speak, some participants suggest that they have been moved by the stories of the others, and so the issue here is not so much to understand the “real” nature of these emotional issues —and therefore the sufferings and related discrimination— but rather to make them “work” in relation to each other by forming a narrative that can be shared and reinforced thanks to the legitimacy offered by the collective emotional framing.

30The presence of emotions in public is surprising at first, and it attests to a double process. The public aspect of these spaces is constructed around collective activities, particularly those that are rooted in social and political issues, and this could make the event politically sensitive. By framing narratives in terms of emotions it is possible to mitigate the sensitive nature of the topics, while in other situations the same processes might function more as “tools for raising awareness”. At the same time, by coding issues in terms of biography and emotions, we can see what different stories have in common. This study focuses on spaces where activists from different movements can exchange and connect with each other, but in these venues they can also connect with people who are less involved, and the shared language revolves around topics of civic engagement and general interest. As such, the collective thus functions as a kind of body that can offer approval —although this will vary depending on the members and situation— allowing for a sort of production linked with issues of the “common good” (Pharo 1985). Links are made in these spaces between activists and those who are less involved, and this thus points to the idea that the range of what is “sayable” is expanded within a context where social and political relations are being revealed. Besides these outbursts of an illegitimate nature, these different actors forge connections through discussions that represent forms of “ordinary civicism” (Pharo 1985). “Civicism” here is not a synonym for “good citizens” or even an integrated subject. Rather, it is a question of seeing these small intrusions as attempts to join the debate on social or political issues, and as a way of expressing one’s subjectivity and presence in a public sphere. There is, then, a shift between the boundaries of what is and is not political. While the concepts of “civicism” or “citizenship” may have been overused as they have instrumentalised for political ends, they are still nonetheless useful for reconsidering and shifting the boundaries of what is and is not politics, and even for reinvigorating the political sense behind civic forms whose meaning has been obscured (Murard & Tassin 2006).

Conclusion

31The clear division between public and private space does not stand up in the face of the empirical data, but it is particularly striking how the two are interwoven in contemporary China. The socialist institutions’ attempts to regulate social space are not ubiquitous, and they do not succeed every time, but they nonetheless serve to remind us of the strong presence of political controls. Even if we are not in a “public space” in that term’s most basic sense, or in the sense of Habermas —hereby political issues are present albeit in an elitist and gendered way— the authorities’ control and right to inspect social practices are important. These two elements —namely the interference in private and public spaces on the one hand, and the authorities’ right to inspect and control matters on the other— constitute precautions and strategies for circumvention which can be used in situations of a political nature. In the situation presented here, emotions are particularly present.

32Far from being an innocuous element of these interactions, the emotions rather serve as an aspect of strategies for circumvention. First, they make it possible to obscure the fundamentally political nature of certain discourses by refocusing narratives on individual suffering, while simultaneously reassuring the public authorities as to what is happening in these spaces. Emotions also help reinforce the resonances between individual narratives and public problems. As such, they highlight the importance of the physical space of the gathering, and therefore the possibility to meet and for bodies to be present together and share experiences where the most important thing is to “do it together” (Thireau 2020). It is therefore important to consider the simple fact of being together, even without taking into account the effect of the words and speech (Butler 2015), in order to take account of the sensitive aspect in public spaces.

The author would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable suggestions, and Joanna Britton20 who took care of the English translation of this article.

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Notes

1 This is the name used by those who founded the space, and how it was referred from then on. It is used as the accepted name in this article for purely empirical reasons.

2 Douban 豆瓣 is an internet site launched in 2005 which allows users registered on the platform to make “pages” dedicated to cultural spaces, books, films and music. It thus lists most cultural and social events in the major Chinese cities. It has users who are more or less professional as well as private individual users.

3 Not all of our respondents worked in Beijing, and some were in Chongqing or Wuhan, but the majority did live and work in the capital. Official statistics from the municipality of Beijing show that in 2014, the average annual salary was 77,560 yuan (just under €10,000) per capita, which corresponds to an average monthly salary of about 6500 yuan (approx.€837). For the year 2015, these figures are, respectively 85,038 yuan and about 7,000 yuan. Out of 51 respondents, 44 had a monthly salary lower than the average salary in the city of Beijing, and three had no salary at all at the time of the interview.

4 The Chinese term is shalong , in a phonetic transposition of the French name.

5 We distinguish here between politics and political regimes, within the global context of the “recomposition” of relations between both of these (Camau & Massardier 2009: 8). There is no denying that the latter forms part of an authoritarian framework in China. Nevertheless there has been renewed interest in the former as related to multiple actions on the local level, and often focusing on various ad hoc causes. This is evidenced by the proliferation of collective actions by property owners from the new middle classes (Merle 2014), individuals working on environmental challenges (Deng & Yang 2013), and workers protesting working conditions in their factories (Pun et al. 2012, 2016). In the areas we were focusing on, these “political” regimes above all encompass the political actions and movements, and, to a lesser extent, a few one-off actions. The distinction between the two was also visible in the terms used describe these two different types of activity. Words for the former more often came from the semantic field of politics (zhengzhi 政治), while the second elicited terms related to social action, or even charity and humanitarianism (gongyi 公益).

6 The “letters and visits” administration is an institution for complaints where citizens can raise grievances with the authorities. Established for the purpose of finding out about the population’s opinions and states of mind, the use of this institution has, in return, also enabled the individuals who use it to try to redefine what social justice means for them.

7 In this context, the term caogen 草根 is often used as a direct literal translation of the English “grassroots”.

8 The term minjian refers to anything that is not part of an official structure.

9 Apart from activities such as debates and presentations by activists, the “youth spaces” are part of a group of organisations dedicated to the so-called “gongyi” sector. This term has multiple meanings, and is sometimes translated as “humanitarian”, “public interest” or even “charity”. Depending on the context and who is involved, it can designate “shared interests but also the general interest or the common good [...], willingly pointing out projects that do not fall directly within the official and public sphere” (Thireau 2013). There are numerous reasons why the youth spaces get absorbed into this sector. These include the fact that they attract many students and graduates, and it is also due to a desire to make them less sensitive in relation to the presentations which activists make in these spaces. Educational projects in rural areas are one operation carried out by these young people and which overlap with those of the Communist Youth League or its sub-organisations.

10 These organisations are not, however, free from the process of repression. In January 2006, the supplement of this newspaper, called “Freezing Point” (bingdian 冰点) was stopped following an article that was judged to contravene the party line. The editor was laid off but his journalists supported him by striking for one day, a first in the PRC. For more details on this case, see Béja 2007: 67–74.

11 Appearing in the 27 April 2016 edition of the “China Youth Daily” (Zhongguo qingnian bao 中国青年), the article is entitled “Democratic learning of collective life” (qunju shenghuo de minzhu lianxi 群居生活的的民主练习).

12 This excerpt, and those that follow, are all transcripts of discussions which happened that evening.

13 Throughout the evening, people’s membership of the various activist organisations and networks were never stated. We were able to trace them retrospectively.

14 For example, according to a 2012 survey conducted in the cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Canton and Shenzhen, only 30% of property deeds included the woman’s name, even though women contributed to purchases in 70% of cases (Hong Fincher 2014).

15 The All-China Women’s Federation is the Chinese Communist Party organisation which is in charge of women’s issues. It was founded in 1949.

16 Excerpt from the presentation of the evening. The emphasis is our own.

17 We have highlighted the two utterances in italics.

18 Here we use the term coined by Danilo Martuccelli who by “social life” meant the “intrinsic and inescapable dynamics of all forms of collective life. In this sense, social life connotes the immediate experience of being together in a physical way. It thus refers, in the undifferentiated and broadest sense, as much to life with others, intersubjectivity, interactions or social relations as to life in a collective” (Martuccelli 2017: 63).

19 Here Eva Illouz means the fact that individuals use “the same cultural structure to give meaning to their negative emotions and make them ‘work’ by generating a narrative of suffering and self-help, which individuals can then share and use to further their intimacy.”

20 Joanna Britton is an English native speaker with extensive experience in editing and translation. See her website.

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List of illustrations

Title Figure 1. Feminist protest against domestic violence
Caption Photograph of a feminist protest organised by some activists who came that night.
Credits © 女权之声 nüquan zhi sheng
URL http://journals.openedition.org/civilisations/docannexe/image/5750/img-1.jpg
File image/jpeg, 172k
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References

Bibliographical reference

Marie Bellot, Public space and affect: Political sensibilities, biographical narratives and emotional framing in ChinaCivilisations, 69 | 2020, 81-101.

Electronic reference

Marie Bellot, Public space and affect: Political sensibilities, biographical narratives and emotional framing in ChinaCivilisations [Online], 69 | 2020, Online since 01 January 2024, connection on 19 April 2024. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/civilisations/5750; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/civilisations.5750

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About the author

Marie Bellot

Marie Bellot has a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Lyon 2 and has conducted a doctoral thesis on the political socialisations of qualified young people in China and the ways in which these can bear witness to forms of ordinary civism. She is currently a post-doctoral researcher at the department of sociology and political science at the University of Shanghai in the framework of the LIA “Post western sociology in Europe and China. [Triangle Laboratory, UMR 5206, Université de Lyon 2, 15 Parvis René Descartes, 69342 Lyon cedex 07, France | marie.bellot[at]cefc.com.hk

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