Genealogy of Chinese Children Subjectivation: From the Perspective of Michel Foucault

• In Event: Genealogy and the Production of Subjects Across Cultural and Disciplinary Contexts

Abstract

Historically, a child is not a substance, but a form in China. So the central arena of inquiry is the historical constitution of these forms and their relations to “games of truth”—family ethics—in Chinese discursive spaces. From Foucauldian analysis, this paper historicizes the analytics of family ethics that have interpenetrated renditions of Chinese children, delineating the discursive formations through which the figures of the children appear in pre-modern and modern eras. Significantly, the discourse of the former era was not replaced by that of the latter, but coexisted with it, revealing discursive mingling, not discursive shift endorsed by Foucault. This status offers an opening onto different ways of existing and the introduction of (dis)continuity into children’s very Being.

Author

• Tingwei Rong, Hangzhou Normal University