Chinese Subjectivities and the Beijing Olympics available in Paperback
Chinese Subjectivities and the Beijing Olympics
- ISBN-10:
- 178348988X
- ISBN-13:
- 9781783489886
- Pub. Date:
- 03/06/2017
- Publisher:
- Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
- ISBN-10:
- 178348988X
- ISBN-13:
- 9781783489886
- Pub. Date:
- 03/06/2017
- Publisher:
- Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Chinese Subjectivities and the Beijing Olympics
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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781783489886 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. |
| Publication date: | 03/06/2017 |
| Series: | Critical Perspectives on Theory, Culture and Politics |
| Pages: | 296 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.88(w) x 9.08(h) x 0.86(d) |
| Age Range: | 18 Years |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Chinese Subjectivities and the Beijing Olympics
By Gladys Pak Lei Chong
Rowman & Littlefield International, Ltd.
Copyright © 2017 Gladys Pak Lei ChongAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-78348-987-9
CHAPTER 1
The Productive Aspect of Power
The Art of Making an Active Chinese Subject
THE BEIJING OLYMPICS AND SUBJECTIVITIES STUDIES
A single-party state, China receives negative news for its use of "negative" power, such as media censorship and the prosecution of dissent and dissidents, which could lead one to assume that the Chinese Communist Party's (hereafter CCP) source of domination is primarily derived from its deployment of force and ideology, and that its people are the oppressed victims of the state, living in shameful conditions with little room for resistance. The 2008 Beijing Games is a case in point. Whenever there were Western media reports about Beijing, citizens' discontent or government censorship was featured to reiterate an oppositional relationship between an authoritarian Chinese government and the people. Not that criticism was absent within mainland China, but there was a relative lack of domestic protests (Teets, Rosen, and Gries 2010) — at least, based on my observations during the fieldwork, not as visible or audible as the criticism outside China. The majority of the population seemed to be keen supporters of the Games. Many believed that the Games — despite the amount of resources they cost — would advance China's status in the global arena, and that the CCP and its current leaders were doing their jobs in making China a strong and respectable nation state in the world.
If all the CCP does is to repress and force its will on its people, then how could one explain the consistency of pro-PRC nationalism? And if all the governing body does is to make the people feel deprived, wouldn't the people feel discontented and rise up to overthrow the regime or, at least, not participate in its agenda? As Foucault writes:
The notion of repression is quite inadequate for capturing what is precisely the productive aspect of power. In defining the effects of power as repression, one adopts a purely juridical conception of such power; one identifies power with a law that says no, so that power is taken above all as carrying the force of a prohibition. Now I believe that this is a wholly negative, narrow, skeletal conception of power, one that has been curiously widespread. If power were never anything but repressive, if it never did anything but to say no, do you really think one would be brought to obey it? What makes power hold good, what makes it accepted, is simply the fact that it doesn't only weigh on us as a force that says no, but that it traverses and produces things, it induces pleasure, forms knowledge, produces discourses. It needs to be considered as a productive network that runs through the whole social body, much more than as a negative instance whose function is repression. (1980a, 119)
Based on what I experienced and observed during the fieldwork, I discovered that the strategies and tactics deployed by the ruling authorities were more productive than merely the imposition of negative forms of power could be, for they are means and practices that help achieve the technologies of the government, which are practical and calculated rationalities governed by conscious governing goals.
The sharp contrast between the seemingly overwhelming support of the Games within China and the various global criticisms of China motivated this research: How might we understand the Chinese population's support for the Beijing Olympics and its government? What motivates an individual to become an active subject of the state? This book examines how the productive processes of subjectification are achieved. In other words, I examine the processes under which individuals become self-directed subjects of their own, having internalized state-defined norms/ideals in embracing the nation's dream.
The uneasy tension between the narrowly constructed idea of coercive or oppressive power and a consistency of pro-PRC nationalism forced me to look for theoretical tools to explain the broader ruling strategies and tactics that shape the behaviours of individuals. Foucault's works offer useful analytical tools. In his words: "I would like my books to be a kind of tool-box which others can rummage through to find a tool which they can use however they wish in their own area. ... I don't write for an audience. I write for users, not readers" (Foucault 1994 [1974], quoted in Nealon, 2008: 112). His works helped me negotiate a labyrinth of questions regarding the state and governance, the processes of subjectification and subjectivity, and above all, questions related to power, unavailable in Chinese literature. So the use of Foucauldian ideas lies in intervention, practicality, and availability.
Foucault writes about the two meanings of a subject, both suggesting power relations: an individual is (1) "subject to someone else by control and dependence" and (2) "tied to his own identity by a conscience or self-knowledge" (1982, 212). Paul Rabinow (1984) elaborates on Foucault's idea of subjectification as intertwining processes that involve the use of scientific modes of classification, the dividing practices, and the ways that individuals turn and act upon themselves to become specific forms of subjects. The use of scientific modes of classification involves the use of scientific knowledge to give these practices the status of objective facts; for example, how sciences classify individuals as the subjects of sex/gender in biology or the subjects of labour in economics. The practices divide an individual from others, for instance, similar to how the government defines good citizens in relation to "bad" citizens, and the patriots in relation to the traitors. Operating along these processes of objectification are the processes of subjectification, which refer to how individuals exercise autonomy and learn to see themselves, for example, as male or female subjects, or how men or women recognize themselves as subjects of a particular nation state. This last point challenges the critique that Foucault's subject, an outcome of discipline and control, is passive and totally determined (McNay 1991). Embedded in a specific cultural, institutional, and historical setting, the subject in Foucault's works is relational and socially constituted.
Foucault's works are based on the historical development and social and cultural attributes of the European societies, which for a long time led one to focus on the Western nation states as the key sites of analysis (Burchell et al., 1991; Dean 1999) that subsequently resulted in overlooking non-Western and non-liberal societies in Foucauldian studies (Sigley 2006; Kipnis 2008). In recent years, there is a growing body of research linking China with Foucault's concepts and "governmentality studies" (Dutton 1992; Sigley 2004; Jeffreys 2004; Bray 2005; Greenhalgh and Winckler 2005; Kipnis 2008). Even then, there runs a danger of seeing this emerging study as a mere reflection of how Western governing practices "travel" to non-Western nation states, reducing them to "a series of footnotes in the history of Western political reasoning per se" (Sigley 2006, 490).
Considering that Foucault himself writes against the dividing practices, it is surprising that much of the existing Foucauldian studies rigidly define the non-Western as distinctly different from the West. This book challenges this practice of division by providing empirical insights that seek to advance existing studies in three areas. First, this study explores an under-studied area of how globalization works within the nexus of governmentality. China is neither the only nor the first nation state to use the Games to promote its political agenda. Politics saturates the Olympics: various studies show how host countries use the Olympics to promote a political agenda, to raise their international profile through national image making, to foster a sense of national belonging, and to reconcile racial differences. However, very little is done to examine how a global mega sports media event intersects with the governmentalization of a nation state. Even though a wealth of literature related to the 2008 Olympics already exists, popular approaches to the subject focus on the political dimension, political economy, socio-economic dimension, historical analysis, and ideological meanings of the Olympics. While recognizing the larger macro effects generated by the Olympic spectacle and the importance of the event (the analysis of the opening and closing ceremonies in J. Luo 2010 and Barmé 2009, in particular), I notice a significant lack of research (also for other Olympics) about the micropowers that have been put to work at the scale of everyday lives. Except for a few articles focusing on the "domestic sphere" (Davies 2009; Ha and Caffrey 2009) and a quantitative analysis of Beijing residents' perception of the Games (Gursoy et. al., 2011), scant attention has been given to the everyday social lives of the very people who lived in the Olympic cities. This study of the Beijing Olympics examines how this mega sports event displays how disciplinary power, biopower, and governmental power were put into practice, producing subjects that were mobilized by the state. It demonstrates what a global event/spectacle can do and how it is incorporated and shapes a nation state's governmentality. This book addresses two crucial questions: what China does to Foucault and what Foucault does to China. Through this Foucauldian analysis, this research fills in the overlooked aspects of Olympic studies and media studies on Olympics-related topics.
Second, I demonstrate how resistance — an under-studied and under-theorized aspect of Foucauldian studies (McLaren 2002, 49) — appears in various forms and instances, even in a non-liberal and authoritarian setting. In so doing, I address the critiques surrounding Foucault's analytics of power as behaviourist and descriptive (Patton 1998; Teurlings 2004).
Third, within the field of China studies, this monograph adds to the studies regarding the CCP's governing strategies. Promotion campaigns for the Olympics were an exemplary expression of the continuous and ceaseless efforts in which the Chinese government claims its superlative achievement; others include (1) the Great Leap Forward in the late 1950s, (2) the manned space programme, (3) the celebration of the thirtieth anniversary of the Reform and Opening Policy ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.]), (4) the celebration of the sixtieth anniversary of the PRC, and (5) the 2010 Shanghai Expo, which claimed to have the highest number of visitors. China's successful bid to host the 2022 Winter Olympics demonstrates once again the importance of this mega event in its governing strategies. In tracing these governing techniques, I illustrate the historical development of Chinese governmentalities, confirming that Foucauldian governmentality is hardly unique to the West.
Through the micro aspects of everyday life, this book examines the processes of subjectification, the exercise of the "microphysics of power." The ultimate target of the state's mobilization strategies and tactics is the whole Chinese population, as the China circle in figure 1.1 specifies; yet, specific strategies and tactics were also deployed to produce specific kinds of subjectivity. I focus on five segments of the population — each foregrounding a particular subjectivity — to show how this subjectivity intersects with and co-determines Chinese subjectivities in support of the Beijing Olympics. The athletes in chapter 2 foreground gendered subjectivity; the volunteers in chapter 3 exemplify the production of educated, young, and potentially global Chinese subjects; chapter 4 focuses on urban subjectivity by looking at a circulating subsection of the urban population — taxi drivers; chapter 5 examines how the place-making project shapes one's Chinese subjectivity; and lastly, the Hong Kong population in chapter 6 illustrates the struggles around the production of Hong Kong (Chinese) subjectivity. The inner circle in figure 1.1 indicates these population segments within my study; the Hong Kong circle, being halfway to the larger China circle, indicates its in-between position as being officially part of China, yet not entirely integrated.
In what follows, I first discuss Foucault's discourse, power-knowledge, "analytics of power" (Dreyfus and Rabinow 1982, 184, 188), disciplinarity, biopower, and governmentality. In governmentality one sees how Foucault makes explicit the intertwining relationship among discourse, knowledge, and power in the formation of the subjects. Next, I illustrate the strategies and tactics used by the government to garner people's support for the Beijing Games and ultimately for the CCP, adhering to the concept of governmentality. This section begins with the discourse of China's great rejuvenation, which intertwines with discourses of national humiliation and of pride and glory. Figure 1.2 reveals ways in which the CCP constructs China's past, present, and future. The discourse of China's great rejuvenation has allowed the CCP to position itself as the rightful and legitimate leader of the nation. Two other governmental strategies and tactics are the use of media and technology, and the use of soft power ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.]), culture, and Chineseness. These mobilizing strategies, tactics, and discourses are visually elaborated in figure 1.1. Finally, based on chapter summaries, I draw my conclusions, adding a methodological note. What now follows is an overview of my Foucauldian framework of analysis.
FOUCAULT AND CHINA: KNOWLEDGE, POWER AND GOVERNMENTALITY
On reading Foucault's notion of disciplinary power, and later on biopower and governmentality, Jeffrey T. Nealon (2008) suggests that Foucault never excludes the existence of negative forms of power — the sovereign power — that control and repress. Various theorists, too, have argued that negative power coexists with what Foucault terms the productive forms of power (Lemke 2000; Sigley 2004; Dean 2002; Hindess 2001; Kipnis 2011). The former, as Foucault argues, is too easy to spot and, therefore, is a less-effective and more costly method of domination.
Foucault's notions of power and governmentality frame negative power, such as censorship and control, as tactics of governance. In Foucault's words, "Even though consensus and violence are the [negative] instruments or the results, they do not constitute the principle or the basic nature of power" (1982, 220). Rather, what energizes the CCP's rule in China are its strategic and tactical ways of deploying various means of governance. These include mobilizing a wide array of discourses and various promotion activities and programmes, such as the volunteering services, civilized behaviour campaigns, and patriotic education. The Chinese government does not impose these campaigns upon the citizens, by law or by force. As demonstrated through my case studies, I witnessed the ways in which a large number of individuals willingly submitted themselves to these campaigns. As Peter H. Gries writes, "Nations do not act; individuals act" (2005, 257). Power should not be understood as something that is possessed solely by the sovereign state to impose on its people. In Foucault's words:
Power must by [sic] analysed as something which circulates, or rather as something which only functions in the form of a chain. It is never localised here or there, never in anybody's hands, never appropriated as a commodity or piece of wealth. Power is employed and exercised through a net-like organisation. And not only do individuals circulate between its threads; they are always in the position of simultaneously undergoing and exercising this power. They are not only its inert or consenting target; they are always also the elements of its articulation. In other words, individuals are the vehicles of power, not its points of application. (1980a, 98)
For example, of the 1.7 million volunteers who served in the Olympics (the largest number in Olympic history), the majority did not receive any financial remuneration. Furthermore, chapter 3 shows how most embraced their volunteering experiences. Their active participation in this spectacle was motivated by a complex set of social relations, such as familial pressure, social recognition, future career prospects, and personal interests.
Whereas financial expenses in hosting such a mega event were huge, the state managed to mobilize its human resources at minimal cost. This demonstrates that "the exercise of power is not a violence that sometimes hides, or an implicitly renewed consent. It operates on the field of possibilities in which the behaviour of active subjects is able to inscribe itself" (Foucault 2002b, 341). The power exercised by the government to attain support and maintain its leadership within the PRC should be understood as productive forms of power that function to achieve, not to oppress or to destroy. In short, this power is much more intense and effective in dissemination, and gets things done in the most economical way. It is "much more efficient and much less wasteful (less costly economically, less risky in their results, less open to loopholes and resistances)" (Foucault 1980a, 119).
(Continues...)
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