In Unknotting the Heart, Jie Yang provides a fascinating look at a process of transformation that few general readers would be aware is going on in urban China, and that even specialists know relatively little about. Yet the 'psychologization' of China's political economy is an extremely significant topic that casts light on China's rapid rise and transformation. Yang draws on ... Read moresocial theory in thoughtful ways to interpret affective dynamics. Her originality lies in how she takes the emotional consequences of reform very seriously indeed.
Alan Smart, University of Calgary, author of The Shek Kip Mei Myth: Squatters, Fires, and Colonial Rule in Hong Kong, 1950-1963 In Unknotting the Heart, Jie Yang rigorously and insightfully analyzes what she calls state-led therapeutic intervention and the psychologization of governance in contemporary China. Based on detailed fieldwork with laid-off workers, this elegant ethnography not only forces us to rethink recent analyses of 'the self,' entrepreneurialism, and marketization but also raises important questions about the sociopolitical implications of these modes of governing. It is a must-read for anyone interested in governance in China today.
Lisa M. Hoffman, University of Washington Tacoma, author of Patriotic Professionalism in Urban China: Fostering Talent Unknotting the Heart offers invaluable information and insights into the lived experiences of laid-off workers and the state's responses in China. Being the first book-length ethnography on the recent rise of Western psychotherapy in China, it will be of great interest to scholars in China studies, medical anthropology, and psychology.
Hsuan-Ying Huang
Pacific Affairs
With this book, Yang makes an important contribution by exploring the subjectivities of unemployed workers in China and by making visible the often hidden ideological struggle between the state and the unemployed workers over the interpretation of dislocation and unemployment.
Ofer Sharone
ILR Review
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