Tragic Stability and Elusive Selfhood: On the Drive for Self-Development in Contemporary China

Abstract

The requirement for “self-development” through the ceaseless acquisition of skills and credentials has long been central for young adults in China. However, due to the multiple and unpredictable demands of social institutions, many social actors also prime the cultivation of a self that does not succumb to immediate occupational and material impositions. In this article, I describe how young adults in a second-tier city pursue a model of personhood that brings together socio-economic competence and singular individuality. These individuals aspire to expand their range of experiences and their spatial mobility, thereby reifying an image of a self that transcends narrow social roles and networks. Drawing on Jean-Paul Sartre's dualistic philosophy, I analyse young adults’ attempts to realise individualised selves by destabilising their ontological ground. I argue that this phenomenon is magnified in China through widespread notions of a “moral crisis” and its supposable suppression of social actors’ agency.