Biopolitical Beijing: Pleasure, Sovereignty, and Self-Cultivation in China's Capital

In this article, life-cultivation arts (yangsheng) in Beijing are presented as a form of political practice. These technologies of the self include physical exercise, nutrition, and transforming one's attitudes and habits. Drawing on interviews and on popular health literature, these ethnograph...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Cultural anthropology 2005-08, Vol.20 (3), p.303-327
Main Authors: Farquhar, Judith, Zhang, Qicheng
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Attitudes
Beijing China
biopower
Bureaucracy
China
Classical literature
Cultural anthropology
East Asian politics
Expulsion
Foucault, Michel
Health
Health behavior
Leisure
Life
Mao Zedong (1893-1976)
Maoism
Nutrition
Physical fitness
Pleasure
Political anthropology
Political history
Politics
Sovereign states
Sovereignty
Taiji
Teaching methods
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Summary:In this article, life-cultivation arts (yangsheng) in Beijing are presented as a form of political practice. These technologies of the self include physical exercise, nutrition, and transforming one's attitudes and habits. Drawing on interviews and on popular health literature, these ethnographic findings suggest that China is no exception in the field of modern biopolitics, despite its indigenous political philosophies, its long history of imperial bureaucracy, and its more recent revolutionary history of Maoist socialism. Nonetheless, the particular convergence of power and life is deeply historical (i.e., nonmodern) in instructive ways. Local and historically inflected approaches to spirit, pleasure, and health define the political in relation to the achievement of the good life.
ISSN:0886-7356
1548-1360
DOI:10.1525/can.2005.20.3.303