Staff profile

I am a PhD researcher in Human Geography at Durham University. My research lies at the intersection of rural and cultural geography, critical heritage studies, tourism, migration and mobility, and gender and social inequality. I am particularly interested in heritage not as a fixed collection of cultural assets, but as an ongoing social and political process through which places, identities, resources and forms of authority are produced, negotiated and contested.

My doctoral research focuses on rural heritage-making in southwest China, particularly Dali. Drawing on long-term qualitative and ethnographic fieldwork, I examine how heritage and tourism reshape everyday social relations in rural places, and how these processes intersect with gender, in-migration, property, labour and changing rural hierarchies. A central focus of my research is on women’s roles and experiences in heritage-making, particularly how women’s labour, knowledge and participation are recognised, represented or rendered less visible, and how gendered relations of property, mobility and social authority shape their capacity to participate in and benefit from heritage and tourism development.

More broadly, I am interested in the politics of heritage, tourism and place-making: whose knowledge and practices come to count as heritage, who has the authority to interpret and represent place, and how tourism and heritage-making may reproduce, negotiate or reshape existing identities, social relations and inequalities.

My academic background is interdisciplinary. I was originally trained in landscape architecture, with research and practical experience in urban–rural planning, and my earlier research examined rural settlements, human–environment relations and rural heritage, often through spatial and quantitative approaches. This work gradually led me towards questions about the social relations and power dynamics through which rural places are produced and transformed. My current research therefore primarily uses qualitative and ethnographic approaches, with a stronger emphasis on everyday practices, lived experiences, mobility and inequality.

Alongside my academic research, I have also been involved in heritage conservation practice, including an internship at the Palace Museum in Beijing. These experiences continue to inform my broader interest in how heritage is identified, governed, represented and transformed in practice.

My doctoral research is supervised by Michael Crang and Penelope Anthias. I look forward to connecting and exchanging ideas with researchers who share related interests.

• Cultural geography
• Heritage geographies
• Tourism geographies
• Rural geography
• Heritage-making and place-making
• Gender and feminist geographies
• Migration and mobility
• Social and spatial inequalities
• Ethnography and qualitative methods
• China / Southwest China