Zixuan Yang

I am interested in topics around gendered migration, intimate labor, emotions, aging and sexuality. My doctoral project focuses on the affective experience of the Chinese migrant sex workers in Paris. I am eager to learn: how the Chinese sex workers experience ethnicity, intimacy, and citizenship as (il)legal migrants in France? Cautiously attempting to understand the vulnerabilities of the Chinese sex workers without falling into the ethical and normative debates on prostitution that build on a rigid binary between “criminalization” and “victimization”, I turn to the narrative phenomenology of “fear” to unveil what are existentially and ethically at stake in these women’s lives of migration and prostitution. Ultimately, I am keen to discover how Chinese sex workers sustain a sense of safeness (physical, emotional and moral) as they live through pain, violence, and moral breakdown.

Please feel free to contact me if you share similar research interests or you have any questions about my project.

Degrees and Education

MA in Anthropology and Sociology, Geneva Graduate Institute

BA in English Literature, Beijing Foreign Studies University

Awards

Chancellor’s Fellow for China and Chinese Studies (Academic Year 2022-2023)