ABOUT
I am a cultural anthropologist and ethnographic filmmaker. In my research and teaching, I explore subjectivity, collective memory, and modernity, with an emphasis on understanding the shifting contours of race, ethnicity, and cultural heritage as powerful categories in the contemporary world. I investigate these issues through long-term ethnographic fieldwork on independent and vernacular media practices, urbanization and the transformation of rural landscapes and livelihoods, and cultural heritage tourism in the People's Republic of China.
I am an Associate Professor in East Asian Languages & Cultures and Anthropology at the University of Southern California. In June 2023, I began a twelve-month fellowship as an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Research Fellow in Berlin, based at the Centre for Anthropological Research on Museums and Heritage at Humboldt Universität-Berlin. There, I am developing my research on cultural heritage, infrastructure and urbanization, architectural design, and China's global reach.
For the past decade, I have been engaged in a multi-sited project on the lived experience of modernity in China's countryside through an ethnographic exploration of locally made amateur and semi-professional documentary videos. Vernacular media of this kind are ubiquitous across much of rural ethnic China. A portion of this research is published in the volume, Asian Video Cultures (Duke U Press).
Alongside my research on rural media I am also working on a second ethnographic film, These Days, These Homes. This film is a portrait of two women from Upper Jidao village who have been integral interlocutors for over a decade.
My first book, A Landscape of Travel: The Work of Tourism in Rural Ethnic China (University of Washington Press, 2014), utilizes mobility and visuality as analytics for exploring the consequences of tourism development on social relations and individual senses of self in two rural, ethnic minority Chinese villages. In addition to my book, I directed and produced a film about tourism in the villages I study, 农家乐 Peasant Family Happiness.
I am an Associate Professor in East Asian Languages & Cultures and Anthropology at the University of Southern California. In June 2023, I began a twelve-month fellowship as an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Research Fellow in Berlin, based at the Centre for Anthropological Research on Museums and Heritage at Humboldt Universität-Berlin. There, I am developing my research on cultural heritage, infrastructure and urbanization, architectural design, and China's global reach.
For the past decade, I have been engaged in a multi-sited project on the lived experience of modernity in China's countryside through an ethnographic exploration of locally made amateur and semi-professional documentary videos. Vernacular media of this kind are ubiquitous across much of rural ethnic China. A portion of this research is published in the volume, Asian Video Cultures (Duke U Press).
Alongside my research on rural media I am also working on a second ethnographic film, These Days, These Homes. This film is a portrait of two women from Upper Jidao village who have been integral interlocutors for over a decade.
My first book, A Landscape of Travel: The Work of Tourism in Rural Ethnic China (University of Washington Press, 2014), utilizes mobility and visuality as analytics for exploring the consequences of tourism development on social relations and individual senses of self in two rural, ethnic minority Chinese villages. In addition to my book, I directed and produced a film about tourism in the villages I study, 农家乐 Peasant Family Happiness.
Media:
"Uyghur Visions: Two films by Mukaddas Mijit"
USC EASC, 2021 (watch below)
"The Disneyfication of China's Minority Foods"
Taste, 2018
"Ethnic Festival Boost Tourism in Rural China"
AFP, 2014
"A Close Look at Tourism's Impact in Rural China"
Emory eScienceCommons, 2014
Chinese Rural Tourism
Interview on BBC World News "Impact"
aired June 5, 2013 (watch below)
"No Early Harvest In China's Rural Tourism Push"
by Ben Blanchard, Reuters 2007
"Uyghur Visions: Two films by Mukaddas Mijit"
USC EASC, 2021 (watch below)
"The Disneyfication of China's Minority Foods"
Taste, 2018
"Ethnic Festival Boost Tourism in Rural China"
AFP, 2014
"A Close Look at Tourism's Impact in Rural China"
Emory eScienceCommons, 2014
Chinese Rural Tourism
Interview on BBC World News "Impact"
aired June 5, 2013 (watch below)
"No Early Harvest In China's Rural Tourism Push"
by Ben Blanchard, Reuters 2007