ABSTRACT
This conclusive chapter offers some final reflections on the forms of youth expressive presence encountered throughout the book, which existing narratives of assertion do not aptly capture. It tracks the ambivalent political significance of the spatial and cultural practices under scrutiny, arguing that the modes upon which presence unfolds modulate its very performative force and political potential. The chapter ultimately reflects on the positive affectivity (e.g., fun, playfulness, ‘positive energy’) described in several chapters, to ask whether these dominant tonalities of China’s youth cultures might constitute an impassable, undisrupted threshold toward more overt demands for change and alternative imaginations of the future.
