Affective Enclaves: Invisible Religion and the Reassembly of the Sacred in Chinese Immigrant Life

• In Event: Joint Roundtables: Social Psychology Section and Sociology of Emotions Section
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Table 3 - Symbolic Boundaries

Abstract

This paper examines small-scale self-cultivation circles among Chinese immigrants in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area after COVID-19, including healing sessions, vegetarian discipline networks, and manifestation workshops. It asks how these gatherings organize belonging and moral orientation in everyday life, and how participants come to treat certain feelings, practices, and spaces as carrying sacred-like significance without stable institutional affiliation.

The analysis is based on 18 months of interpretive ethnographic fieldwork (2024–2025), combining participant observation, informal interviews, and sustained digital engagement across recurring activities in Southern and Northern California. Conceptually, the paper develops affective enclaves to describe semi-private formations in which shared atmosphere, sensory arrangement, and embodied techniques structure interaction and evaluation. In these enclaves, moral credibility is produced through affective display and aesthetic discipline—calmness, restraint, and the capacity to inhabit the group’s emotional register—more than through doctrinal commitment.

Three findings guide the argument. First, affect operates as social infrastructure: emotional resonance produces trust and recognition among migrants who are otherwise socially dispersed, and it also facilitates selective networking and resource exchange. Second, boundary maintenance relies on style rather than belief, generating informal hierarchies of authenticity and competence. Third, these enclaves produce episodic coherence and care but remain structurally fragile: participation is fluid, commitments are light, and ethical horizons often concentrate on self-optimization and immediate relational needs.

Author

• Xiaoying Gan