University of Hong Kong
James WRIGHT
PhD Dissertation: “Techno-Welfare in Japan: Personal Care Robots and Temporalities of Care” (2018)
PhD Degree in Anthropology & STS, Supervisor
This dissertation investigates how the practice of elderly care and the lived experience of elderly recipients of care in Japan are being transformed by the introduction of so-called social robots designed to mechanise aspects of care work and affective labour. Drawing on multi-sited ethnography in a national robotics research institute and elderly care institutions, the dissertation explores the processes by which emerging social robotic care systems, funded and developed through partnerships between industry, academia and government, are engineering new biopolitical subjectivities, and what this means for the wider roboticisation of society in Japan and beyond.
Jingyi TIAN
MPhil Thesis: “Redefining the ‘Self’ through Martial Arts. Ethics, Honor, and Moral Bodies in Transnational Kendo in Hong Kong” (2019)
MPhil Degree in Anthropology, Supervisor
This thesis explores the ways in which a group of middle-class Hong Kong practitioners adopted a Japanese martial art, kendō, as a form of self-cultivation and a project to pursue personal ethical goals. Drawing on a year of ethnographic research in three local dōjōs, the thesis argues that practitioners strive to refine their ethical selves through regular training, while complying with the highly demanding moral codes and training protocol of kendō’s body culture. Kendō’s body culture and moral codes emphasize self-reliance, self-responsibility, and adaptability, and these values intersect with practitioners’ personal ethical demands as they seek new ways to cope with the pressure and the challenges of life in a highly stressful global financial city like Hong Kong. This thesis proposes a new perspective to examine processes of ethical self-cultivation in the realm of sports practices, and it contributes to the study of institutionalized spaces of ethical reflection and self-cultivation beyond the spheres of religion and education.
Xie XIN
MPhil Thesis: “Pilgrimage to Prosperity. Business Trajectories and Networking Strategies of Transnational Sub-Saharan African Women Traders in Guangzhou” (2017)
MPhil Degree in Anthropology, Supervisor
This study undertakes research on the transnational experiences of sub-Saharan African women traders in the city of Guangzhou to challenge dominant academic discourses depicting women from the global south either as “victims” or as “passive agents” of capitalist globalization. Drawing on seven months of ethnographic fieldwork in Guangzhou, the thesis discusses the business and networking strategies of sub-Saharan African women traders, showing how these strategies are shaped by market opportunities and a proliferation of transnational infrastructures triggered by the restructuring of international trade. The key finding of this study is that, rather than being exploited and restricted locally by capitalist globalization, sub-Saharan African women traders are active agents of globalization. The city of Guangzhou has provided sub-Saharan African women traders the opportunity to benefit economically from globalization, but Guangzhou is merely a temporary node of the transnational networks of these female traders and its significance may decline in the near future as a result of on-going processes of global restructuring. This study adds significant complexity to existing academic discourses on globalization by introducing the transnational life experiences of sub-Saharan African women traders who are small players in globalization. It shows that globalization is a continuous process mutually shaping and being shaped by agents worldwide including women from the global south. It highlights that both globalization and women from the global south are highly complex and are both under a continuous process of becoming.
Jack L. XING
MPhil Thesis: “Technological Choice of Taxi Drivers under E-Hailing: Conventional Occupation Groups under the Pressure of Sharing Economy and Post-Fordism” (2019)
MPhil Degree in Anthropology & STS, Supervisor
This thesis proposes an analysis of the attitudes of conventional licensed taxi drivers in Mainland China to new e-hailing (ridesharing) technologies and business models. Drawing on primary sources, documentary analysis, and above all, one-year of ethnographic fieldwork research with licensed taxi drivers and e-hailing private car drivers in the city of Xi’an, the thesis analyzes taxi drivers’ technological choices, their job choices, and their attitudes towards the sociotechnical systems of taxicab driving and e-hailing. The analysis focuses on a number of aspects including the socioeconomic background and skills of drivers, the technical practicalities of driving and managing cars, the intermediary parties that provide business support, and the companies and governments with their different policies or regulations. The thesis shows that licensed taxi drivers in Xi’an favor the existing conventional sociotechnical system of taxicab driving, as opposed to becoming e-hailing private car drivers, because the sociotechnical system of taxicab driving is more compatible with their class-shaped value system and ethical expectations in terms of stability, social support, state endorsement, and conventional professional identity. This case study suggests that society is holding on to the notion of conventional occupation groups and is resisting the capitalist push for labor displacement through technological advancement. Therefore, a reasonable prediction for the near future is to say that automation technologies will transform, rather than replace conventional professional occupations and structures of labor.
Yishan ZHONG
MPhil Thesis: “Mothering with Mobile Communication Technologies in Urban China” (2019)
MPhil Degree in Anthropology & STS, Supervisor
Childhood and motherhood in 21st century China are becoming increasingly embedded in mobile technologies. In major urban areas, smartwatches aimed at children and designed to facilitate location tracking and adult-child mobile communication have become popular in recent years. This study explores how use and understandings of mobile technologies intersect with emergent forms of urban intensive mothering in an environment where children face fierce competition in education. Drawing on qualitative materials collected through ethnographic research methods, the thesis examines the roles of mobile phone technologies—particularly smartwatches and smartphones—in processes of middle-class mothering for children aged 7 to 10 in the city of Guangzhou. The study shows how mobile technologies help parents negotiate parenting tasks with school actors, secondary caregivers, and even children, as a response to increasing demands on parents, especially mothers, to accompany the educational progress of their children. Mothers complain about how mobile phone technologies have facilitated a significant increase in their responsibilities as childrearing coordinators, but the overall attitude is pragmatic and accommodating. Confronted with a highly competitive educational environment and an emerging culture of intensive mothering, some women favor becoming full-time housewives and primary-caregivers, but the majority continues to hold on to full-time jobs and mobile phone technologies have enabled them to keep their jobs without neglecting their “labor of love” as mothers and their moral duties as educators.
London School of Economics and Political Science
Selected Master Theses
E. DWYER, “Unequal sex ratios, bride shortage, and marriage migration” (2010)
MSc Degree in China in Comparative Perspective, Co-Supervisor
T. HU, “The Relationship between Bureaucracy and Private Entrepreneur in Post-socialist Era: China and Russia in Comparative Perspective” (2010)
MSc Degree in China in Comparative Perspective, Co-Supervisor
D. NOMEIKAITE, “Collectivisation and coercion: A comparative study of Stalinist and Maoist models and their impact on the peasantry” (2010)
MSc Degree in China in Comparative Perspective, Co-Supervisor
M. PALAU, “How do China and Brazil deal with water pollution challenges? A comparative perspective of two emerging countries’ approach to water pollution problems” (2010)
MSc Degree in China in Comparative Perspective, Co-Supervisor
A. RAJANATHAN, “China vis-à-vis Brasil: What Role Will These Emerging Markets Play In Tomorrows’ Global Economy?” (2010)
MSc Degree in China in Comparative Perspective, Co-Supervisor
J. TAM, “Approaches towards Iran’s Nuclear Programme: The United States of America and China in Comparative Perspective” (2010)
MSc Degree in China in Comparative Perspective, Co-Supervisor
J. WEI, “Comparing Administrative Reforms in China and the UK” (2010)
MSc Degree in China in Comparative Perspective, Co-Supervisor
A. WITT, “Economic Sustainability in China and Japan: a Look at the Evolving Role of Technology and Government Policy” (2010)
MSc Degree in China in Comparative Perspective, Co-Supervisor
B. CHEMOUNI, “The Diaspora as an Economic Asset: How China and India use their diaspora to support their economic development” (2009)
MSc Degree in China in Comparative Perspective, Co-Supervisor
S. DEVEREY, “Will China’s “middle-class” lead a democratic revolution? – a re-evaluation of Seymour Martin Lipset’s class based theory on democratic change” (2009)
MSc Degree in China in Comparative Perspective, Co-Supervisor
G. HUNTER, “The Legacies of Ch’ing and Tokugawa Scholarship: Education Modernization in the T’ung wen-Kuan and Meiji Charter Oath of 1867-1868″ (2009)
MSc Degree in China in Comparative Perspective, Co-Supervisor
S. GYE, “The China Economic Development Model in Comparative Perspective Versus the Washington Consensus and the East Asian Development Model” (2009)
MSc Degree in China in Comparative Perspective, Co-Supervisor
J. KARSH, “The Reflexive Impact of Foreign Affairs on Civil Rights: A Comparison between Early Cold War America and Contemporary Xinjiang” (2009)
MSc Degree in China in Comparative Perspective, Co-Supervisor
N. LI, “In Search of a Political Society in China: A Reflection on the Sources of China’s Democratization” (2009)
MSc Degree in China in Comparative Perspective, Co-Supervisor
I. NADAL ARBONA, “The social meaning of consumption in a globalised world: youth, mobile phones and social identity in China and India” (2009)
MSc Degree in China in Comparative Perspective, Co-Supervisor
D. OUELLET, “Post-Socialist Economic and Political Reform: China and Albania in Comparative Perspective” (2009)
MSc Degree in China in Comparative Perspective, Co-Supervisor
F. RADENBACH, “The Distribution of Pain – An Anthropological Comparison of Table Tennis Environments in China and Western Europe” (2009)
MSc Degree in China in Comparative Perspective, Co-Supervisor
D. REMMERT, “Filial Daughters Now and Then – Women´s Performance of Xiao in Contemporary Urban China and Taiwan” (2009)
MSc Degree in China in Comparative Perspective, Co-Supervisor
G. RIZZO, “Empire, Ethnicity and Nation-State: China and Russia in comparative perspective” (2009)
MSc Degree in China in Comparative Perspective, Co-Supervisor
J. SOONE, “Co-operative hegemony in East Asia: A comparative study of China and Japan” (2009)
MSc Degree in China in Comparative Perspective, Co-Supervisor
P. SRAMKOVA, “History education at the service of nation-building in China and India: a comparative study of secondary school history textbooks” (2009)
MSc Degree in China in Comparative Perspective, Co-Supervisor
M. TIDDIA, “Squares of Memories. A comparison of Tiananmen square, Ba Dinh and the Red square” (2009)
MSc Degree in China in Comparative Perspective, Co-Supervisor
D. WU, “The impact of kinship on the development of industrialisation: from the British industrial revolution to the Chinese industrialisation” (2009)
MSc Degree in China in Comparative Perspective, Co-Supervisor
T. BRACEY, “Double Happiness? Or: Will Prosperity Lead to Democracy in China?” (2008)
MSc Degree in China in Comparative Perspective, Co-Supervisor
J. P. CROCHET, “Thirty Years of Reforms and Still No Crisis. Is China’s Financial Future at Risk? Theory and Evidence” (2008)
MSc Degree in China in Comparative Perspective, Co-Supervisor
A. DALL’OCA, “Strategies for North East Asia. The role of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in American and Chinese foreign policy, a comparative analysis” (2008)
MSc Degree in China in Comparative Perspective, Co-Supervisor
V. HOWARD, “The Relationship between Consumerism and the Expression of Individuality among Chinese and Vietnamese Youth in the 1990s and Today” (2008)
MSc Degree in China in Comparative Perspective, Co-Supervisor
G. ILIEV, “Services Outsourcing to India and China” (2008)
MSc Degree in China in Comparative Perspective, Co-Supervisor
D. KWOK, “Chinese and Russian Privatisation in Comparative Perspective” (2008)
MSc Degree in China in Comparative Perspective, Co-Supervisor
A. LAJAM, “Incubating a Market for Innovation: Technology Policy and Science Parks in China & Singapore” (2008)
MSc Degree in China in Comparative Perspective, Co-Supervisor
S. LI, “A silent famine: study of China’s 1959-61 famine in comparative perspective with Ukraine and North Korea famines” (2008)
MSc Degree in China in Comparative Perspective, Co-Supervisor
D. SU, “Are political reforms possible in China in comparison with Taiwan?” (2008)
MSc Degree in China in Comparative Perspective, Co-Supervisor
M. TAYLOR, “On Ideology and Imperialism: An Exposition of Chinese and American Westward Expansion and the Interrelationship between Frontier Imperialism and the Idea of the Nation” (2008)
MSc Degree in China in Comparative Perspective, Co-Supervisor
Y. WU, “One Religion, Two Fates: a Comparative Study on Dissemination of Christianity in Korea and China” (2008)
MSc Degree in China in Comparative Perspective, Co-Supervisor
ISCTE - University Institute of Lisbon
Marisa GASPAR
PhD Dissertation: “Macau Sá Filo: Memória, Identidade e Ambivalência na Comunidade Euroasiática Macaense [Memory, Identity and Ambivalence in the Eurasian Macanese Community]” (2013)
PhD Degree in Social-Cultural Anthropology, Co-Supervisor