Structures of Affect

Examines the central role of affect and gender in shaping personality, community, nationhood and political discourse in contemporary China.

Drawing on (auto)ethnography, interviews, films, podcasts, and cultural and artistic productions from the 2000s to 2025, this book demonstrates how authoritarian rule is sustained through complex affective mechanisms, while also tracing the subtle, everyday forms of affective resistance that emerge within and against these structures.

Proposing 'structures of affect' as its analytical framework, the study investigates how the formative experiences of China's ruling elites cultivated an enduring 'affective attachment' to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), a process that reinforces authoritarian legitimacy. At the same time, it reveals how latent hierarchy, gendered violence and forms of 'affective antagonism' within activist communities have reproduced the very sexism and authoritarian practices that their activism seeks to oppose. Through this examination, the book highlights the practices of affective negotiation at the grassroots level, including Sinophone-Tibetan feminist podcasting, the 'affective queering' of community-making, self-making and solidarity among the younger generation, and the 'affective suffering' captured in cinematic responses to the Russo-Ukrainian War and China's COVID-19 governance.

Ultimately, this book offers a nuanced account of political culture as lived, embodied and emotionally mediated practice. It concludes by advocating a feminist ethics of care and envisioning alternative modes of living and political engagement in repressive contexts, grounded in a transformative affective ethos.