The Paradox of Class Labeling in the Mao Era: Bio-Power, Racism, and the Question of Violence

Abstract

How can we understand the paradox that the apparently “convivial” (Ivan Illich) ideal of Maoism and the Chinese Revolution resulted in the extreme violence and turmoil of the Cultural Revolution? In this article, I tackle this question by discussing the practice and system of class labeling during the Mao Era (1949–1976), in particular, during the Cultural Revolution. I begin by examining the theory and concepts presented by Michel Foucault and propose my understanding of such key notions as “bio-power,” “population,” and “racism.” Then, by closely examining the discourses of “class labeling” in “big character posters” (dazibao) and other official and non-official publications during the period, I contend that the violence was not a temporary surge of political and social madness, nor was it a disruption in the normal progression of the history of modern Chinese society, but a historically and institutionally specific case of the workings of the rationality and power of modernity.

Keywords:

• bio-power
• class labeling
• racism
• The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution
• violence

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Seio Nakajima

Seio Nakajima is Associate Professor of Sociology and Asian Studies at the Graduate School of Asia-Pacific Studies, Waseda University. He has received Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California at Berkeley. He has conducted organizational analyses of the Chinese film industry, as well as ethnographies of Chinese film audiences and consumption. His research has appeared in From Underground to Independent (P. G. Pickowicz and Y. Zhang, eds. [2006]), Reclaiming Chinese Society (Y. Hsing and C. K. Lee, eds. [2009]), and The New Chinese Documentary Film Movement (C. Berry, L. Xinyu, and L. Rofel, eds. [2010]). His recent articles include “Prosumption in Art” (American Behavioral Scientist, 2012), “Re-imagining Civil Society in Contemporary Urban China: Actor-Network-Theory and Chinese Independent Film Consumption” (Qualitative Sociology, 2013), and “Chinese Film Spaces: The Social Locations and Media of Urban Film Consumption” (Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies, 2014).