Educating the Chinese Individual: Life in a Rural Boarding School by Mette Halskov Hansen (review)

Drawing primarily on her ethnographic research at one state-run rural boarding school in Zhejiang Province from 2008 to 2012, Mette Halskov Hansen engages the discussions of the Foucauldian theory of governmentality¹ and the individualization thesis² in the post-Mao Chinese context. Individualization, Hansen states, is a macrosociological phenomenon; the term refers to the rise of the individual, rather than state-funded institutions or collectives such as family or class, as a responsible subject in creating his/her own life. In contrast to the Western European model, individualization in China is a state-initiated process that has developed in the absence of a welfare state, cultural democracy, and the notion of individual autonomy. This process, which Hansen characterizes as “authoritarian individualization” (16), encourages individuals to take responsibilities in socioeconomic spheres while adhering to political authorities. Examining the state school as “a site for intense negotiations of the role of the Chinese individual” (11), Hansen not only provides an empirically based analysis of the macroinstitutional changes in the relationships among state, society, and individual but also highlights the agency of students and teachers in creating and responding to processes of societal individualization.

To give the authoritarian individualization process a concrete setting, Hansen first examines the organization of daily life in the boarding high school. With their parents working in urban centers, rural students are increasingly disconnected from family and forced to conduct their lives within a tightly controlled boarding school. Meanwhile, students create ways to negotiate individual space and take initiative in forming collective community by utilizing cell phones for noncurricular activities and socialization. The agency of students, Hansen argues, captures what Kleinman defines as the “divided self,”³ that is, students work to acquiesce to the authorities’ demand of schooling and collaborate with the imposed structure but simultaneously “test the limits to individual agency” (67).

The divided self is not only a lived experience of students but also an intended outcome of education from the perspective of the Chinese state, which, however, prescribes different details about the ideal individual to cultivate. Chapter two focuses on the state’s [End Page E-6] investment in and responses to individualization processes. Analyzing textbooks used in political and literature courses, Hansen shows the official discourses on the role of individual, as both a moral citizen and a consumer. A moral citizen is an individual obedient to the law and respectful of the party-government’s monopoly of the right to define and interpret the law. A good consumer as an economic individual, however, needs to be innovative and self-responsible. Besides the state curriculum, the traditional approach of exemplary models continues to be used to transmit official views. But the models now speak more to students’ sensitivity as individuals living in an intensified individualized society. Lei Feng (雷锋), for instance, a revolutionary model from the Mao era, when he appears in contemporary school campaigns, has become a charming, well-dressed young man and a consumer, enthusiastic about motorcycles, in addition to being a good citizen.

The next two chapters further examine how the processes of authoritarian individualization are transforming educational practices and students’ lives. Chapter three studies experiments with elections for the student association. Like the student cadre system, the practices of student associations constitute an important training technique in the individualization process. Students learn to unconditionally adhere to authorities’ rules and to take initiative in governing self and fellows. Meanwhile, the very processes of election, Hansen suggests, open up opportunities for teachers and students to negotiate the role of the individual and the room one has to speak for collective rights. Some student cadres feel frustrated by the fact that not much room is available for them to work in the broader interests of students, according to Hansen’s interviews.

Besides state-initiated practices, commercialized activities also play a role in shaping the processes of authoritarian individualization within the state school. Chapter four...