I am a cultural sociologist who researches on four intersecting areas, identity, race and ethnicity, gender and sociology of sport. I obtained a PhD in Sociology at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), and my PhD research examines Mainland Chinese male athletes’ self-understandings of their identities and how their processes of identification intersect with traditional Chinese cultural ideals, such as Confucianism and local-based discourses surrounding masculinity as well as race and ethnicity, and post-structural as well as late modern values. Drawing on in-depth interviews with and observations of Chinese male provincial badminton athletes located in North, Central and South China, the project explores the contested debates surrounding the stereotyped binary of “Western individualist vs Eastern collectivist”, and I investigate this phenomenon and its validity in terms of the Chinese sportsmen’s self-accounts of their identities and lived experiences. Moreover, I also examine how the tripartite dynamics amongst gender (such as “wen” and “wu”), race and ethnicity (such as Han chauvinism and “tianxiaism”) and China’s sporting culture are manifested as well as developed. By shedding light on both micro and macro social matters—which are traced back to the discourses and understandings of the “self”—that are problematized by societies and institutions, I utilize a qualitative approach that bridges both locally and globally informed dialogues on issues, such as those associated with race and gender, to tie in with public discourses surrounding the dynamics of identity, culture and power.

My research has been published in Cultural Sociology, Journal of Sport and Social Issues, Global Media and China, Journal of Consumer Culture, Journal of Cultural Economy, and Social Transformations in Chinese Societies, among others. To further broaden and develop my research as well as teaching interests, I took part in research projects (affiliated with the China Africa Fashion Power project that is funded by the European Research Council) at the Media Studies Department, University of Amsterdam, and was an affiliated research fellow at the Department of Sociology, LSE as well as a visiting fellow at the Department of Sociology, Harvard University.