The Deputy Director of the SOAS China Institute (SCI), Dr Jieyu Liu, has received a grant of almost €1.5 million to research Chinese families in East Asia.

The five-year project, titled ‘Doing Intimacy: A Multi-sited Ethnography of Modern Chinese Family Life’, will provide the first comprehensive study of practices of intimacy in Chinese families, their intertwining with gender and intergenerational dynamics, and interrelations with local and global change.

The research will be rooted in case studies of Chinese communities in urban and rural China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. These sites have been selected to bring to the fore how particular socio-economic- political and cultural configurations feature in intimate family practices. The project will provide sophisticated answers to complicated questions such as ‘How are Chinese families changing and adapting to wider social changes?’ and ‘How do different socio-economic and political configurations shape family behaviours?’

Speaking about the sizeable grant from the European Research Council (ERC), Dr Liu said:

“East Asia is experiencing extraordinary socio-economic development and rapid demographic transition. Through the case study of Chinese families, the project will throw new light upon global questions on family, development and modernity. I am very pleased to be awarded this grant.”