Speaker: Biao Xiang
Abstract: Many college students and young professionals (aged between 20 and 40) in China loath themselves for lacking courage (yongqi). They blame themselves for not being brave enough to quit the jobs that they dislike, to ignore excessive requirements from superiors, or simply slow down a hectic life. The lack of courage is not an absence of willpower. On the contrary, they struggle against their own wishes in order to carry on. Why has the courage to search alternatives been replaced by the willpower to confirm? Why have the young professionals become increasingly aware of this contradiction—as manifested in self-blame—since 2015, and what changes could this awareness bring about? Addressing these questions, this essay suggests that courage is not only a matter of volition, determination and overcoming; courage should also be understood as a capacity of finding and enlarging alternatives already existing in the present circumstance.
Bio: Born (1972) and raised in China, Xiang Biao is currently a director of the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Germany, and was a Professor at the University of Oxford before that. He has worked on migration and social changes in China, India and other parts of Asia. He is now exploring a “common concerns” approach in social research.