Equal Temperament: Autonomy and Identity in Chinese Public Speaking Clubs

Young professionals in China are eagerly studying what are called communication skills, particularly public speaking. This article reads technologies of self‐presentation in the context of tentatively liberal social imaginaries, and as therapeutic resources for connecting with others. Entering Toastmasters public speaking clubs in Beijing, we see psychosocial techniques and institutional forms that anchor people otherwise floating in a fragmented urban space. Club members actively seek to be objectified on stage, to become self‐aware under the gaze of an audience. They practice locating themselves within an imagined public, as individuals. However, members also repurpose their clubs into comprehensive social resources, and they construct a critical historical consciousness. While members of public speaking clubs pursue self‐definition, they do so in ways that challenge liberal understandings of autonomy and identity. We can hear these tensions by listening to how Chinese therapists use psychology to articulate social critiques. While both psychotherapists and members of public speaking clubs participate in a modernist cultural politics, club members do not regard personal relationships as antagonistic. Young adults in urban China are getting on stage in order to connect with other people. Like their peers elsewhere, they are learning the power of self‐definition in a world of strangers.