My hair is mine and not mine: educational mobility and affective experiences in China

This article theorizes hair as a contested corporeal surface where power, subjectivity, and affect are negotiated during the process of upward educational mobility in China. We analyze the shifting regulation of the female body as it transitions from the rigid disciplinary regimes of rural high schools to the consumerist landscape of urban universities. We argue that, prior to the national college entrance exam, hair is subjected to a unique form of biopolitical management designed to produce a desexualized body. Upon entering university, this institutional control is supplanted by the affective governance of urban consumer capitalism. We reveal how these students navigate their encounters in urban beauty spaces, where their rural origins intersect with new pressures for self-objectification. By tracing the shift from shame to anxiety, this article contributes to the sociology of education by demonstrating how educational mobility involves a profound and painful reconfiguration of the gendered and classed body.