I work on how cultural systems fail to fully contain the objects, bodies, and practices they circulate. My research combines cultural analysis with anthropological theory to examine misalignment, improper use, and authorized crossings in global material cultures.

Funded by the ERC project China–Africa Fashion Power, my PhD research centres on wigs and the transnational circulation of human hair. Tracing Made-in-China wigs composed of Vietnamese, Indian, Chinese, and other forms of hair across formal and informal supply chains, I examine how hair moves through racialised fantasies, Black consumer markets, and intimate bodily practices across Asia and Africa. Hair’s persistent displacement and misrecognition—between real and fake, object and body, Asia and Africa—raises questions about what enables such crossings, and what each authorised crossing produces.

I received my BA in English and Anthropology from Sun Yat-sen University, where I conducted long-term ethnographic research on Nigerian diasporic life in Guangzhou. I hold an MSc in Urban Studies from the London School of Economics. Prior to my PhD, I worked as a research curator at Guangdong Times Museum, collaborating on interdisciplinary art and exhibition projects addressing migration, material culture, and identity in Southwest China and Indochina.