· Intimate relationship
· Immigrant
· Ethics
· Identity politics
Yu Qiu
Dr. Yu Qiu (邱昱) is a social anthropologist interested in intimacy, migration, ethics, and identity politics. In the past, she has conducted empirical research on various forms of Afro-China encounters in Nigeria, Tanzania, and China. Holding an MPhil and a PhD in Social Anthropology from the University of Cambridge, and a BA in Sociology from Tsinghua University, Dr. Qiu is currently a ZJU 100 young professor at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences and the Department of Sociology at Zhejiang University.
At present, Dr. Qiu has two projects that explore the multi-directional migration and interactions between China and Africa. The first project, based on decades-long investigation into the intimate lives of Nigerian migrants and their Chinese partners in South China since the 2010s, examines embodied desires, cultural changes, and identity politics brought about by Africa-China mobility and economic opportunities.
Here are the published pieces:
Yu, Qiu. 2021‘Cleavage: A note on Guangzhou, COVID-19 and China-Africa Friendship Politics’. Journal of African Cultural Studies.33, 184–193.
邱昱2021《人类学作为一种解法: 我的“中-非相遇”修炼记》，《新生代人类学之路》，北京：学苑出版社。
Yu, Qiu. 2018, ‘The Chinese are Coming: Social Dependence and Entrepreneurial Ethics in Postcolonial Nigeria’ in Yellow Perils: China Narratives in the Contemporary World F. Billé &S. Urbansky (eds.) Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. 142-169.
Yu, Qiu. 2017. Complicit Intimacy: A Study of Nigerian-Chinese Intimate/Business Partnerships in South China. Doctoral Thesis. University of Cambridge.
邱昱，2016. 清洁与危险：中尼亲密关系里的去污名化技术和身份政治, 开放时代（4）:88-108
The second project investigates the recent transnational Chinese Buddhism in the Swahihi-speaking region of East Africa. Specifically, it examines the evangenlical project of Han Chinese Buddhism and the moral and social meanings and practices of 'growing affinity' (jieyuan) in a Chinese Buddhist monastery in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
Here is the latest publication:
Yu, Qiu. 2024. ‘The art of jieyuan: Ethical Affinity and Chinese Buddhist Spirituality in Tanzania’, Special Issue: Religious Suasion. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute.(https://rai.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-9655.14110)
Here are my book reviews revolving around studies on ‘China and Africa’：
Yu, Qiu. 2022. Driessen, Miriam. Tales of hope, tastes of bitterness: Chinese road builders in Ethiopia. viii, 198 pp., maps, bibliogr. Hong Kong: Univ. Press, 2019. £37.00 (cloth). Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 28, 370–370.
Yu, Qiu. 2019. Mapping the New African Diaspora in China: Race and the Cultural Politics of Belonging Shanshan Lan New York and London: Routledge, 2017 x 202 pp. £110.00 ISBN 978-113867306-9. The China Quarterly,240, 1156-1158.
For the development of an anthropology of ethics and morality, I co-translated the pioneering work by James Laidlaw ( The Virtue of Ehics, CUP, 2014)：
邱昱（与吴迪），2022年，《以德为体：关于道德和自由的人类学》（[英]雷天助著），北京：北京大学出版社
Education Background
Bachelor's degree in sociology, Tsinghua University, 2010
Master's Degree in Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge, UK, 2011
PhD in Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge, UK, 2017