In recent years, thanks to the popularity of digital platforms, an increasing number of female-led disabled persons’ organisations (DPOs) focusing on disability inclusion has emerged in mainland China. This growth marks a welcome change from the traditional male dominance of such organisations. While multiple definitions of DPOs exist, in this essay, we view DPOs as […]

In late March 2024, I accompanied Yifan to Golden Phoenix, a matchmaking agency specialising in arranging uxorilocal marriages in Xiaoshan District, Hangzhou, a place where life still moves at a leisurely pace. Yifan was in his early thirties, short, and slightly balding. As we were on our way, he constantly made self-deprecating jokes about his […]

This year marks 30 years since China launched its ambitious Tibet-Aid Project (援藏计划), a vast and ongoing party-state effort to reshape the region. Unveiled at the 1994 Tibet Work Forum, the scheme pairs Tibet’s administrative units with inland provinces, cities, and state-owned enterprises, injecting Han Chinese expertise, resources, and capital into the Tibetan Autonomous Region […]

From the turn of the twentieth century, Marxist socialist thinkers internationally grappled with what was known as the ‘agrarian question’. Initially, this referred to the problem of whether their respective national peasantries were disappearing, transforming into industrial workers as Marx predicted and as was deemed necessary for their revolutionary projects. In the many cases where […]

Change and continuity are interrelated dynamics. All social scientists grapple with this interrelation. How is continuity embedded in change? How does change enable continuity? In struggling with such issues, social scientists, along with everybody else, create concepts to depict the dynamics of change and social continuity. These concepts are never a perfect match with the […]