Current Research Areas

 

1) Global Economy and Development

 

My focus centers around the ongoing tensions between globalization, regionalization and economic nationalism and their impacts on socio-economic development. I especially concentrate on global trade and finance as well as the Belt and Road Initiative.

 

Moreover, I examine various practices in the global knowledge economy and competing visions of economic/sustainable development.In particular, I try to understand how local and regional cultures and institutions shape social and economic development.

 

Recently, I have also looked at the restructuring of global value chains and supply chains as well as the future of work in a new era. I draw from economic geography, economic sociology and economic anthropology to study global value chains and global production systems.

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2) Global Migration

 

Specifically, I look at the mobility of high-skilled professionals, academics, and international students in the global knowledge economy. Moreover, I pay close attention to the issues of identity, racism and cultural encounters.

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Furthermore, I try to understand how both the international and internal migration processes, as well as globalization, shape identities and intimate relationships. I also try to see how they shape global cities and urban/suburban environments. In addition, I scrutinize their relationships to various forms of discrimination, especially anti-Asian racism.

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3) International Relations Theories

 

I examine the knowledge innovation and (re)production of emerging IR theories around the world. I especially look at  IR theories beyond the West and try to understand how non-Western epistemologies, ontologies and cosmologies inform the different conceptualizations of the key concepts in IR, such as power transition, hegemony, state, security, global order, and international/world society.

 

My expertise lies in emerging Chinese IR theories and various Chinese conceptions of the world.  I situate the emerging Chinese IR theories in the broader theoretical debates on Global IR, non-Western IR and post-Western IR. Besides, I also look at Canadian and European theoretical approaches to IR/IPE from a comparative perspective.

 

On the practical level, I look at grand strategies (or lack thereof) of leading powers, such as the US, China and the EU, and Russia.

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4) Global City and Megaregions

 

I am especially interested in urbanization in emerging global cities and megaprojects in the making. In particular, I focus on new emerging global cities, city clusters and megaregions, such as the Guangdong-Hong Kong-MacauGreater Bay Area and the Greater Toronto Area.

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5) Sociology of Global Knowledge and Culture

 

I investigate how knowledge and culture are produced, disseminated and reproduced. Concerning knowledge production, a particular emphasis is on various academic disciplines in social sciences and how different stages of the knowledge production process position in the global value chain. 

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6) Global Higher Education

 

Rapid changes in the political economy of universities are of particular interest. I try to ascertain the forces that drive the current rapid global transformation of universities, such as university ranking, scientific collaboration, international students and research funding. 

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