Dr. Weishan Huang, 2009-2013

Weishan Huang is now at the Department of Cultural and Religious Studies at Chinese University of Hong Kong.

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Weishan Huang received both her MA and PhD degrees in Sociology at the New School for Social Research in New York. Her Ph.D. research focuses on the studies of ethnic Chinese religious movement organizations, including the Chinese Christian Herald Crusades, the Taiwan Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation and Falun Gong, both in New York City as well as their transnational networks. She also participated in the Gateway Project and the Ecologies of Learning Project in New York City.

Her research looked at religions as part of everyday life in Shanghai under the magnificent transition of the intersection of the economic open-up and the social changes that have taken place in last few decades in China, particularly focusing on the ways in which capital-linked migrants influence the religious landscape in Shanghai. Her research focusses, first, on understanding the changes of religious practices and discourses, including both Christianity and Buddhism, among immigrant and local practitioners. Furthermore, she attempts to understand the relationship between the wider city and the strategical manifestation of religious groups in the alternative realm – in the spatial, sociological and political senses.

Research projects:

• Capital-linked migrants in Shanghai (completed)
• Deterritorialization and localization: Capital-linked migrants and transnational Buddhism in Shanghai (completed)
• Evangelical urbanization and spatial transformation in Shanghai (completed)
• Immigration and gentrification in New York City (completed)
• Religious movement organizations and the formation of global denominations (completed)