The Affective Medium and Ideal Person in Pedagogies of 'Soft Skills' in Contemporary China

In this dissertation I explore the role of affect in practices of self-improvement in contemporary urban China. I conducted participant observation in workshops for young adults in the city of Jinan, focusing on interpersonal ‘soft’ skills, such as ‘communication,’ ‘emotional expression,’ and public speaking. These highly interactive workshops urged participants to express themselves as emotional, assertive, inspirational, and above all – autonomous – individuals. This ideal of personhood is inspired by state-promoted reforms in the education system and the rise of psychotherapy across China, highlighting new moral imperatives of self-reliance and emotional well-being in the expanding Chinese market economy. My analysis focuses on the discrepancy between participants’ ideals of self-improvement, as practiced in workshops, and their wider social engagements. While participants conceived of soft skills as capacities that could potentially be employed anywhere, they nevertheless experienced and emphasised impediments to extending their practices outside workshops. They saw their everyday social circles as prioritising hierarchical relations, social roles, and financial stability, all suppressing the ideals of individual autonomy prominent in workshops. Drawing on theories of affect, hope, and the concept of ‘heterotopia,’ I describe how workshops dislocated participants from their existing social realities to produce momentary experiences of self-overcoming. Through affectively intensive exercises, participants identified with their ideal person, imagined themselves mastering social relations, and envisioned a future society governed by the virtues of soft skills. I consider affect, in these practices, not as a means for subjects’ comprehensive self-transformations, but rather as an experience that charges individuals with ephemeral optimism amidst socioeconomic uncertainties. In contemporary market-driven China, I argue, such deployment of affect is increasingly evident in educational activities, entertainment media, and state campaigns. These practices respond to and reinforce an existing schism between the expansion of new ideals of personhood and individuals’ limited capacities to realise them

Fluctuating affect: Purpose and deflation in paths of self-development

This article spotlights the role of affect in paths of “self-development,” focusing on young adults in China who engage in various training programs. Informed by market-driven expertise, individuals configure their feelings as central for their ability to execute their tasks and enhance their socioeconomic competence. Thus, they seek to induce and manage affect while combating the purposeless attitudes that they ascribe to Chinese everyday life. However, young adults are also frequently confronted with their inability to convert affect to palpable endpoints, leading them to frequent deflation and self-examination. Drawing on the works of Sara Ahmed and Lauren Berlant, I delineate this dialectic of high and low affect. I argue that rather than undermining productivity, low affect and its perceived negative valence are integral to a trajectory of self-development where individuals shift between projects and renew their commitment to an underlying ethos, notwithstanding the prevailing impasses of the Chinese socioeconomic landscape