Dr Ruoxi Liu
Research Associate
I am a cultural sociologist interested in how people imagine, practise, and make sense of alternative ways of working, living, and making culture amid social change. I ask: What does it mean to imagine that life and work could be organised otherwise—and what happens when people begin to experiment with that possibility?
My research examines cultural and craft labour, grassroots creativity, collective practices, precarity, independence and subjectivity, and care in contemporary China, with a particular interest in how meanings attached to cultural practices evolve, are negotiated, and sustained within changing social worlds. While the context I primarily engage with is China, I am attentive to how local practices and practitioners travel across borders and connect with one another. Increasingly, I am also interested in how ideas about the past interact with contemporary social imaginaries and practices.
Research Disciplines:
- Sociology
- Cultural Sociology
- Chinese Studies
- Cultural Studies
Research keywords:
- Cultural and craft labour
- Independence and subjectivity
- Grassroots creativity
- Alternative ways of working and living
- Collective cultural practices
- Meanings and social imaginaries
- Precarity
- Care and everyday activism
Research Clusters: