PhD and Postdoc projects in Brokex

Olivia Yijian Liu 

Olivia Yijian Liu obtained her PhD from the Department of Cultural Studies and Oriental Languages at the University of Oslo. Her PhD was part of the BROKEX project, funded by the European Research Council Starting Grant (Grant Agreement No. 802070). She conducted ethnographic fieldwork in 2020 and 2021 on entrepreneurship and innovation in China. 

Her research, which has been published as a book titled Start-up Wolf and in several research articles, explores how transnational entrepreneurs with technological expertise are promoted by the Chinese state as key drivers for regional development. However, Olivia’s work delves deeper into understanding what motivates these entrepreneurs and the challenges they face in building start-ups in China. Through extensive fieldwork, including participant observation and interviews in Shenzhen’s high-tech sector, her research challenges the mainstream perception of entrepreneurship as solely driven by passion and self-initiative. Instead, she highlights how the Chinese state "entrepreneurs" socially privileged talents from elite schools or professions, and how differing selection standards from state and market actors contribute to precarious conditions for these entrepreneurs. This research provides a nuanced perspective on the contradictions within China’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, offering valuable insights for scholars, students, and business professionals interested in innovation and entrepreneurship in China.

Start-up Wolf (Routledge 2024) is published open access, thanks to generous support from the ERC. 

Yichi Zhang 

Yichi Zhang was a postdoctoral fellow from September 2019 through January 2023. Trained as a landscape architect, conservator, and garden historian, his research interests include transnational architecture production, urban geography, modern Chinese urban and garden history, the history of British settlements in China, and conservation of historical gardens and heritage sites. Unable to travel to Guangdong for ethnographic fieldwork as intended before the Covid-19 pandemic broke out, he redirected his research in BROKEX toward international influences on Chinese urban planning and architecture in historical eras. His research in BROKEX includes a study of the nature of urbanism in British concessions in China from the mid-nineteenth century onwards, investigated through a study of the evolution of Tianjin’s Victoria Park, the center of the largest British concession in China.

In South China, Yichi has been interested in the formation of the Lingnan architecture school. His research on Lingnan architecture in the BROKEX project includes a study of how German Modernism influenced it in Socialist China and an examination of climate adaptation in Lingnan-style buildings.

Upon completing his postdoctoral period in BROKEX, Yichi joined the Chongqing University School of Architecture and Urban Planning, where he is now a professor. 

 Wu Wei 

In BROKEX, Wei Wu has been working on how understanding Asia’s historical commercial legacies is crucial to grasping its contemporary rise. Traditional Chinese historiography has focused on a northern, continental perspective due to dynastic concerns with steppe threats. More recent scholarship has shifted attention southward, emphasizing maritime dynamics, a shift that aligns with critiques of the Western-centric modernization model.

Wei’s PhD project examined the role of the Chinese diaspora alongside European business actors in shaping East Asia’s corporate evolution. She compares two Asia-based conglomerates—Tongshuntai (a Chinese diasporic enterprise in Korea) and Butterfield & Swire (a British trading company)—analyzing their business strategies, networks, and management structures. Tongshuntai, the largest taxpayer in colonial Korea, is seen as a precursor to Japan’s Zaibatsu and Korea’s Chaebol, while Butterfield & Swire expanded from a small firm into a multinational corporation still influential in Asia today. 

Wei started her PhD in 2019 and spent two semesters as a guest scholar at SOAS. She is in the process of completing her dissertation.

Daisy Binfang Wu

Daisy Binfang Wu was a visiting PhD student at BROKEX from March through June 2020. She completed her PhD in November 2021 at Canterbury Christ Church University (UK), with Prof. Adrian Holliday as her main supervisor and Prof. Heidi Østbø Haugen as her secondary supervisor. During her time in Oslo, she worked on the theoretical framework for her thesis and started carving out ideas for article publications based on her PhD. 

Daisy took up a position as Assistant Professor at the School of Foreign Languages, Zhejiang University of Science and Technology after graduation. She continued to work on her PhD project – African students in China – through which she developed several publications. She also undertakes other projects focusing on diverse forms of international student inflows to China, as well as teachers’ working experiences with international students, for which she has received several grants, such as from the Zhejiang Office of Philosophy and Social Sciences. She was promoted to Associate Professor in 2024. List of Daisy's publications.