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Biography
Jiazheng Wang (she/her/they) is a PhD candidate in the School of Sociology at the University of Nottingham. Her PhD research investigates the sexual subjectivities of young Chinese women amidst the tensions between burgeoning women's awakening and feminist movements advocating for gender equality and the resurgence of Confucianist gendered norms propagated by the Chinese government. Jiazheng holds a BA in English Language (with a GPA of 3.8/4) from the Nanjing University of Science and Technology in China and a MA in Education with a Merit from University College London.
Research Summary
Research Title: Sexual Subjectivities of Young Chinese Women: Feminist Struggles
Jiazheng's research examine how young Chinese women understand themselves as sexual beings and conduct a critical and nuanced analysis of their sexual subjectivities that may draw on, negotiate, and/or disrupt gender norms entrenched in China's socio-political-cultural context. Essential concepts from Foucault's, Butler's and Deleuze and Guattari's philosophies will serve as the theoretical underpinnings for this research. This research focus in particular on how young Chinese women negotiate their sexual subjectivities and their struggles between sexual moralities and sexual desires amidst contemporary phenomenon, including burgeoning women's awakening and feminist activism via online social media, as well as the backdrop of a gendered political ideology shaped by the government's adherence to Confucian morality.
Utilising analytic methodologies informed by Butler's and Deleuze and Guattari's theories, the research will prioritise the exploration of nuances and dynamics inherent in the sexual subjectivities of young Chinese women, endeavouring to delineate both the resistance and fixity of their subjectivities in relation to gender and sexual norms, while investigating the potential for the emergence of alternative subjectivities and desires. Semi-structured interviews will be the primary source of data collection, followed by a rigorous and critical data analysis informed by a post qualitative inquire. This inquire is underpinned by an onto-epistemology framework that breaks down the binarism between theory and practice, ontology and epistemology. Thus, research, data, participants, theory and analysis are interwoven and entangled in a research assemblage for more nuanced and complicated data analysis,