Authoritarian Governmentality Conveyed in the Films About Education in Rural China

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 2
  In Roundtable Session: Disquieting Materialities: Foucault and Contemporary Theories in Education (Table 2)

Abstract

This paper conceptualizes “authoritarian governmentality” by critically examining four films about education in rural China that were released in around 2000. Drawing on neoliberal governmentality that consists of calculation mentality, biopolitics, and shrinking of the governments, I characterize authoritarian governmentality as responsibilization for the communitarian purposes, abandonment, and legitimization of the unhelpful governments. Different from Dean’s conceptualization (2010), the paper shows a less proactive side of “authoritarian governmentality”. It concludes by drawing comparisons between authoritarian and neoliberal governmentality in liberal and illiberal contexts.

Author

• Yubing Liu, University of Wisconsin - Madison