yung-ying chang
My current research includes three projects:
- Chinese Activism Mobilized at the Intersection of Racial and Diaspora Politics (Dissertation project; Committee Chair: Hana Shepherd, Rutgers Sociology)
My dissertation examines how U.S. Chinese grassroots activists engage with both homeland and hostland politics through their participation in Asian American progressive movements and diaspora pro-democracy initiatives, fields governed by often conflicting logics.
Situating this case within broader political transformations, I also examine the impacts, interplay, and opportunities arising from these conditions: the great power rivaliry between the U.S. and China, China’s intensifying transnational repression, and the rising authoritarianism in the U.S. that mirrors China’s. - Black Bear Nationalism in Taiwan (Co-authored with John Chung-En Liu, Sociology at National Taiwan University, under review)
This paper examines how the black bear as a national symbol becomes embraced by some groups while contested by others, revealing how anti-hegemonic resistance against China can paradoxically reproduce Han settler colonialism toward Indigenous peoples. -
Political Microcultures of Transnational K-pop Fandom (work-in-progress)
This paper examines how micropolitical action unfolds in everyday fandom life through studying two global K-pop fan groups. I discuss how groups varying in their social and physical distance from the Asian region develop different cultures of political talk, characterized by differences in both political substance and discursive norms. I then theorize how contentious political talk at the group level underpins what appears as unified action at the field level during episodes of collective mobilization.