Xuyi Zhao is an urban anthropologist broadly interested in gender, (im)mobility, temporality, and placemaking. Her current research investigates the making of a brand-new urban area in Southwest China and various local efforts of community building, as the latter is often informed by top-down urban planning. Xuyi’s doctoral dissertation seeks to provide an in-depth analysis of state-individual relations amidst China’s unprecedented urbanization, as well as a careful examination of the myriad ways in which people inhabit, interpret, and envision the city vis-à-vis official timelines of urban development.
