Dr Xiang Biao
Teaching and research interests
Migration, global political economy, China, India, state and governance, labor, political and economic anthropology
My research has sought to integrate ethnographic observation into institutonal analysis in order to grasp dramatic social transformations in Asia, espcially in China. My first book (Transcending Boundaries), an ethnographic study on a migrant community in Beijing demonstrates how rigid official boundaries internal to the Chinese state system, which are essential for the state's control over society, have paradoxically facilitated the growth of new social spaces. My research on mobile Indian computer engineers (Gobal Body Shopping) addresses the question of how labor is managed internationally to serve a volatile global high-tech market, and explains jow economic flexibilities are socially and culturally constructed. My forthcoming book (Making Order from Transnational Mobility), a result of four-year field research in China, Japan, South Korea and Singapore, examines the transnational governance of labor mobility through detailed analysis of the business operations of recruitment agents. I am currently working on a number of other topics including return migration, transnational social reproduction, and social debates in modern China.
Selected Publications
Making Order from Transnational Migration. Princeton University Press, forthcoming.
Global "Body Shopping": An Indian International Labor System in the Information Technology Industry. Princeton University Press 2006 (Winner of 2008 Anthony Leeds prize).
Transcending Boundaries: Zhejiangcun: the Story of a Migrant Village in Beijing. Chinese by Sanlian Books 2000; English by Brill Academic Publishers 2005.
A full list can be seen here.
Please also visit COMPAS (Centre on Migration, Policy and Society).
