Research PG
- About
-
- School/Department
- School of Social Science
- Research
-
Research Overview
My research explores vernacular humanitarianism and the contested meanings of empowerment through the case of Naduo Arts (NA), a grassroots development organisation working in a rural ethnic minority village in Yunnan, Southwest China. By vernacular humanitarianism, I refer to small-scale, locally grounded acts of helping others that nevertheless carry wider claims of care and solidarity.
Drawing on more than six years of multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork, I trace NA’s efforts to empower rural girls through professional dance training, as well as the everyday practices of care, discipline, and aspiration that accompany it. I show how empowerment is not a fixed outcome of aid, but rather a fluid and contested process—one that reshapes both those who 'help' and those who are 'helped,' and that unfolds through long-term relationships, moral dilemmas, and institutional negotiations.
Through life histories, organisational narratives, and the evolving responses of the girls and their families, my work demonstrates how empowerment is constantly reconfigured in practice. This research contributes to anthropological debates on NGOs, development, and empowerment by situating a grassroots humanitarian project within the broader tensions of China's poverty alleviation era—showing how modernisation is lived, narrated, and contested in the everyday lives of a new generation in rural ethnic minority communities.
Furthermore, I maintain a keen interest in anthropology of/in development, village studies, ethnographic writing, oral history, NGO anthropology and art anthropology.
Research Specialisms
- Anthropology
- Chinese Society and Culture Studies
Our research specialisms are based on the Higher Education Classification of Subjects (HECoS) which is HESA open data, published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence.
- Teaching
-
Teaching Responsibilities
University of Aberdeen, Teaching Assistant
AT1502 (2024-25): Introduction To Anthropology: Questions Of Diversity
AT1003 (2023-24): Introduction to Anthropology: Peoples of the World
SO1007 (2023-24): Introduction to Sociology I: Self, Identity & Society