Profile

His research focuses on China’s transformation from a planned economy to a market economy after 1978. To understand the transformation, he examines issues of regulation, commodification, and development, and addresses what has happened on the ground and how individuals’ everyday life has been shaped by China’s political and economic transformation. In particular, he investigates urban and regional development and how two particular strategies of development—heritage tourism and transnational regionalization—transform material and vernacular landscapes. Material landscapes include buildings and streetscapes, while vernacular landscapes entail expressions of everyday life through music, dance, costume, religion, and daily routine activities.

Following Antonio Gramsci and Henri Lefebvre, he deploys the approach of political economy—as well as related literatures in cultural geography—to analyze China’s transformation. The approach of political economy seeks to unravel the antagonistic forces and social relations which foster and are encompassed within economic development. His research follows three tracks: urban development and the commodification of urban heritage; border politics and cross-border networks between China and mainland Southeast Asia (Myanmar, Laos, and Vietnam), and state rescaling and Yunnan’s regional development.

He welcomes applicants in AY2023-2024, and would like to work with graduate students who focus on any of the following research topics. Please feel free to contact him if you have any question. 

• Cross-border trade and border cities;
• Transnational narcotics control and development intervention;
• Urban entrepreneurialism and tourism development;
• Border control and transnational migration;
• China and its overseas development assistance

For more information, please visit my webpage: https://sites.google.com/view/suxiaobo