2026/05/27 by Keping Wu, Robert P. Weller · 1 voice
Social Sciences · #Geographies of human-animal interactions #Chinese history and philosophy #Anthropological Studies and Insights
paper · doi:10.1111/etho.70038
openalex publication_date 2026/05/27 · openalex created_date 2026/05/29 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/20
This essay shows the affective resonances of the collision of gods, humans, and rapidly shifting landscapes in a newly urbanized part of Suzhou, China. The first section discusses how ties to spirits are not just metaphors or projections of human kinship, but literal parts of a kinship system that invoke responsibilities of care, based on links of both affect and blood. The second turns to how such intimacy is not always pleasant, and how the closest relationships to gods often begin with sickness and suffering, and in some cases with death leading to deification. Examples of these intimacies include Amei's painful calling to be a spirit medium (and thus a god's daughter) and her niece Xiangling's death and deification as the concubine of the god who took her. The last section turns to the rapid urbanization of the area over the past two decades, which has destroyed all the local temples along with the villages they served. This dis‐placement has created a new affect of frustration in the daughters of the gods, due to the interruptions of their responsibilities of care. In the case of Xiangling's mother, the frustration spiraled into madness after the urbanization process destroyed the statue of her deified daughter. Integrating Navaro‐Yashin's analysis of spaces of ruin with insights from scholars working on the emotional tensions built into intimacy, we reveal how the dis‐placements of rapid urbanization have transformed those intimacies to create an affective and embodied ruination.