Email: qiuyu.jiang [at] mail.mcgill.ca
Research Interests: Anthropology of Law and Religion, Moral Economy, Immigration/Citizenship, Transnational Migration, Space/Place, Urban China, China-Africa
Project Title: The New Merchants of Canton: African Migrants in Guangzhou, China
Project Description: My research interests lie at the intersection of the fields of anthropology of law, religion, Chinese urban studies, and transnational migration studies. My doctoral dissertation explores both the formal and informal legal practices of African migrants in Guangzhou, including their navigation of China’s rigid immigration system, their creation of an ethical business code, and their trans-ethnic and trans-national religious practice. My work also considers post-reform Chinese society, particularly: i) China’s restrictive immigration system based on ethnicity and blood ties; ii) the party-state’s policies of population control and management; iii) the party-state's economic and religious policies; and, iv) Guangzhou’s urbanization process. Particularly, I look at how the formal legal system (i.e.: China’s restrictive immigration system) attempts to control, mediate, and regulate migrants’ experiences in Guangzhou, and, in turn, how African migrants negotiate within and around the formal legal system. I also attend to migrants’ religious conduct in Guangzhou as a form of community generated and generating law – a system of enforceable rules, ethical norms, and community identity – what I term a “religious common ground” that serves to regulates African Muslims’ religious practice, establish social order, transcend ethnic-national differences, and shape African Muslims’ business conduct.
Previous Education:
M.A. Anthropology, Renmin University of China, Beijing;
Dual BA Hon. Ethnology & Ecology, The Central University of Nationalities, Beijing.