
Ms Johanna von Pezold
PhD Student 8/F Hub, 8/F., The Jockey Club Tower, Centennial CampusBiography
Johanna von Pezold is a full-time PhD student in Sociology at the University of Hong Kong, where she is researching the trade and consumption of Chinese-made fashion products in Mozambique.
Originally from Germany, Johanna obtained an MSc in Contemporary Chinese Studies from the University of Oxford in 2017. For her master’s thesis, she conducted ethnographic fieldwork in the Mozambican capital Maputo, examining mutual fashion adaptation in the context of Chinese migration to Mozambique. Before that, she has been studying Chinese and Economics at the University of Hamburg and the Pontifícia Universidade Católica in Rio de Janeiro. At Peking University, she has been a visiting student at the School of Chinese as a Second Language, supported by a Chinese Government Scholarship. She has worked for the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung in Beijing, the BRICS Policy Center in Rio de Janeiro, and leading management consulting firms.
Johanna is especially interested in transnational flows of non-Western fashion and material culture, interactions between global commodity production and local consumer cultures, and China’s relations to the Portuguese-speaking world. She is a Hong Kong PhD Fellowship holder and a member of the Global Shapers Community, an initiative by the World Economic Forum.
Education
Visiting Student, Chinese Language
Peking University, PR China
Master of Science, Contemporary Chinese Studies
University of Oxford (St. Catherine’s College), UK
Visiting Student, Chinese Foreign Relations and Brazilian Social Debates
Pontifícia Universidade Católica in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Bachelor of Arts, Economy and Culture of China
Universität Hamburg, Germany
Research interests
Anthropology
China-Africa relations
Consumption
Fashion
Globalisation and transnationalism
Global production networks
Lusophone Africa
Material culture
Honours and recognitions
Hong Kong PhD Fellowship, Hong Kong Research Grants Council, 2018
EU Window Chinese Government Scholarship, China Scholarship Council, 2017
Book prize for the best final presentation in Chinese, Oxford University Language Centre, 2017
The Harold Bailey Prize for outstanding performance in Asian Studies, St. Catherine’s College, University of Oxford, 2017
DAAD Graduate Scholarship, German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), 2016
Full five-year scholarship, German Academic Scholarship Foundation (Studienstiftung), 2012
Selected publications
von Pezold, J. (2019). “‘It is Good to Have Something Different’: Mutual Fashion Adaptation in the Context of Chinese Migration to Mozambique”, Asia Pacific Perspectives. Vol. 16, No. 1. 34-64.
https://www.usfca.edu/center-asia-pacific/perspectives/v16n1/von-pezold
von Pezold, J. (2018). “Mögliche Einflüsse Mao Zedongs auf die Strategie des IS [Possible Influences of Mao Zedong on ISIS Strategy]”, in Jahrbuch Terrorismus 2017/18 [Terrorism Yearbook 2017/18], edited by Stefan Hansen and Joachim Krause, Verlag Barbara Budrich, 331-347. (In German)
https://www.jstor.org/stable/e26531940