The Neoliberal Politics of Black Women's Self-Help: Sisters, Suggestions, and Systems

我的研究调查了在不断加深的社会危机时期黑人妇女自助（BWSH）书籍的生产和消费的政治。我们现在看到黑人女性为黑人女性写的自助书籍越来越多。这些书包含（超级）积极的信息和指导，据称旨在帮助黑人女性应对阶级歧视、性别歧视和种族主义的连锁挑战。他们鼓励黑人女性掌控我们的生活，沉迷于自我护理，更好地管理我们的财务和人际关系。由于自助行业的作者多样性有限，BWSH书籍的激增似乎表明了一种进步的文化。然而，考虑到出版业的高度商业性及其在投机资本主义中的作用，用批判的眼光看待这一最新发展并探索其背后的驱动力是很重要的。更重要的是，确定这种自助类型是否具有社会价值是至关重要的，特别是与黑人妇女的解放有关，这一直是黑人女权主义者的首要议程。与人种学数据收集过程相结合，包括出版专业人士、BWSH作者和BWSH读者作为主要参与者，我的研究利用社会理论和黑人女权主义思想作为理论透镜，来衡量BWSH书籍和黑人女权主义情感之间的一致性（如果有的话）。我特别感兴趣的是发现在黑人妇女社区中，BWSH书籍的生产和消费在多大程度上代表了性别劳动和新自由主义主体化的场所。通过将黑人女性作为资本主义的主体，我分析了在新自由主义治理和资本主义的背景下，BWSH的作者和读者在自我和女性特质的劳动中所扮演的角色。后女权主义学者，如罗莎琳德·吉尔和安吉拉·麦克罗比，认为自助内容，尤其是针对女性，是一种性别化的“自我技术”——米歇尔·福柯创造的一个术语，用来解释自我调节系统，即个人将某些行为或条件强加于自己以改变自己。按照这种逻辑，自助类书籍鼓励人们为实现目标或理想而艰苦奋斗。与此同时，出版业依靠黑人女性的劳动来写书，这就要求黑人女性付出更多的劳动。因此，鉴于自助的商品化及其在资本主义体系中的嵌入性，我的研究将BWSH的书籍作为一个案例来分析，在这个案例中，种族资本主义的新技术得到了体现。正如我的项目副标题所反映的那样，我计划研究BWSH书籍，主要考虑三个主题：姐妹情谊、建议和系统。确切地说，我试图探索新自由主义和种族资本主义（作为制度）如何通过分享和接受自助建议与黑人姐妹情谊的培养相互作用。换句话说，我关心的是BWSH书籍的社会生活，以及这些书籍的生产和消费与它们的解放潜力之间可能存在的紧张关系。这项研究将对（当代）黑人女权主义、种族资本主义和全球文化经济产生新的见解。

My research investigates the politics of producing and consuming black women's self-help (BWSH) books in a period of deepening social crisis. We are currently witnessing an increase in self-help books written by black women for black women. These books contain (hyper-)positive messages and instructions allegedly designed to help black women cope with interlocking challenges of classism, sexism, and racism. They encourage black women to take charge of our lives, indulge in self-care practices, and better manage our finances and relationships. With limited author diversity in the self-help industry, the upsurge in BWSH books seems indicative of a progressive culture. Yet, given the highly commercial nature of the publishing industry and its role in speculative capitalism, it is important to turn a critical eye to this recent development and explore the driving forces behind it. More so, it is crucial to establish whether this self-help subgenre offers social value, especially in relation to black women's emancipation which has been a foremost agenda for black feminists. Paired with an ethnographic data collection process involving publishing professionals, BWSH authors and BWSH readers as key participants, my research draws on social theory and black feminist thought as theoretical lenses for measuring the alignment, if any, between BWSH books and black feminist sensibilities.I am particularly interested in uncovering the extent to which the production and consumption of BWSH books represent a site of both gendered labour and neoliberal subjectification in black women communities. By centring black women as subjects of capitalism, I analyse the roles of BWSH authors and BWSH readers in the labouring of self and femininity against a backdrop of neoliberal governance and capitalism. Scholars of postfeminism, such as Rosalind Gill and Angela McRobbie, argue that self-help content, targeting women especially, is a gendered 'technology of the self' - a term coined by Michel Foucault to explain systems of self-regulation whereby individuals impose certain behaviours or conditions upon themselves to transform themselves. By this logic, self-help books encourage a belabouring of the self to achieve goals or ideals. At the same time, the publishing industry relies on the labour of black women to write books that demand further labour from black women. Therefore, given the commodification of self-help and its embeddedness in a capitalist system, my research analyses BWSH books as a case study in which new techniques of racial capitalism manifest.As reflected in my project's subtitle, I plan to research BWSH books with three main themes in mind: sisterhood, suggestions, and systems. Precisely, I seek to explore how neoliberalism and racial capitalism (as systems) interact with the cultivation of black sisterhood via the sharing and receiving of self-help advice. I am, in other words, concerned with the social life of BWSH books and possible tensions between both the production and consumption of these books and their emancipatory potential. This research will generate new insights into (contemporary) black feminism, racial capitalism, and the global cultural economy.