Zheng Nengliang and Pedagogies of Affect in Contemporary China

Abstract

This article examines the role of affect in market-driven self-cultivation. Drawing on a study of extracurricular workshops for interpersonal skills in urban China, I describe programs that prioritize momentary excitement, associated with the state-endorsed colloquialism zheng nengliang (positive energy), while distinguishing this experience from the common registers of the exterior world. I define these settings as ‘pedagogies of affect’, activities that bring to the fore the short-lived and indeterminant attributes of affect without coherently serving discursive ideologies in trajectories of social engineering or neoliberal governmentality. This phenomenon demonstrates how the expansion of market-driven expertise for ‘person-making’ to new social groups globally reinforces ethical disjunctures between different social domains, as well as between individuals’ practical and aspirational pursuits.