Wei Li
I am a fourth year Ph. D. student in cultural anthropology. My dissertation research is focused on class, gender, ethnicity, and high education in contemporary China. I am looking at how these social categories intersect and are intertwined with each other in China’s postsocialist setting which features the retreat of socialist state and the rise of a market regime. I focus particularly on ethnic Korean Chinese (chaoxianzu). My tentative dissertation title is "Crisis of Masculinities: Gender, Class, and Ethnicity among Male Korean Chinese College Students in China." I will examine how the latter, as "country bumpkin" ethnic minority student migrants, negotiate and construct their masculinities in their everyday college life through their distinctive class and ethnic capital. I will particularly focus on their job and spouse seeking at the heart of their construction of manhood.