Double alienation: regrounding critical consciousness in troubling times

In classical Marxist thought, the consciousness that they are being alienated from their own labour compels the working class to take action to liberate themselves. In the twenty-first century however, the widespread consciousness of alienation often serves to deepen feelings of powerlessness. Instead of pushing back against the alienating condition, some workers become entangled in a "double alienation"—feeling estranged from their work, they force themselves to work even harder to gain security, recognition, and meaning. Based on an ethnographic analysis of the working conditions of secondary school teachers in urban China, this article disentangles how "double alienation" has resulted from recent changes in the larger political economy and new institutional arrangements, as well as personal histories. These changes have ebbed away the "ground" in teachers' working lives. Without such a "ground," namely self-organized immediate experiences in daily life that provide a basis to reflect on and resist alienating forces, teachers become attached to the system they are so critical of. As such, consciously regaining ground can be a way out. As part of the "Common Concerns Approach" experiment, this essay proposes "double alienation" and "ground" not only as terms to describe reality, but more importantly as intellectual tools that the teachers and others can potentially use for themselves to deal with, and therefore changing, reality.