Guan Xinbing ‘Officials’ Heartache’: Depression, Bureaucracy, and Therapeutic Governance in China

This talk addresses the Chinese phenomenon of guan xinbing “officials’ heartache,” with particular emphasis on the media’s representations of “officials’ suicides” since 2009. Through ethnographic analysis, Professor Yang demonstrates that, instead of biomedical depression as the default cause of officials’ suicides offered by the government and media, the autocratic bureaucratic culture, especially the prevalent practices of qian guize “hidden rules,” trigger officials’ depression and suicide. Professor Yang argues that the management of officials’ suicides involves concatenation of multiple powers: biopolitical, disciplinary, necropolitical, and therapeutic, both sovereign and hegemonic.