Research

My research interests include critical data studies, work and technology, precarious work, gig economy, algorithmic culture, platform governance, and the politics of datafication in collective action. Trained as a qualitative communication researcher, I have been studying and thinking about the lived experiences and resistance of platform workers in East Asia and North America since 2017. Meanwhile, I have collaborated with researchers from other social science disciplines (e.g., political science) and with different methodological orientations (e.g., computational methods) to probe into the politics of platform power.

Overall, my research aims to make three interconnected interventions. First, I show how algorithmic systems prescribe people’s expectations, feelings, and conduct, while leaving space for resistance. Second, I take a relational and processual approach to power, tracing the back-and-forth struggles between workers and platforms, between activists and state authorities, and between platform firms and regulators. Third, I examine how these dynamics are socially and institutionally embedded so as to theorize the varieties of platform power, particularly in Chinese societies.

Much of my completed and ongoing projects can be grouped into the following three thematic areas:

1. Precarious Work and Technology

2. Platform Power in Comparative Perspective

3. Datafication and Social Life

For a full list of my publications, see the publications page or my CV.