Speaking Engagements
Welcome to my curated list of speaking engagements, where share my insights and research with diverse audiences. presentations are tailored for both professional and academic settings, primarily in English with occasional talks in Chinese aimed at farmers. Through these engagements, I strive make complex ideas accessible and foster knowledge dissemination as work towards becoming a thought leader in my field.
Location: Syracuse, US.
Date: 17-May-2024
Panel at Conference on Policy Process Research 2024 | Navigating Central and Grassroots Actors in Chinese Poverty Alleviation: A GONGO Initiative Analysis with the Multiple Streams Framework
In China's four-decade journey of poverty alleviation (PA) practices, PA policies are featured by a campaign-style approach initiated by the central government. Existing studies on PA policies often focus on national and provincial authorities, overlooking local governments (Liu, 2022), as well as other actors that could function as policy entrepreneurs. This paper examines the case of the China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation (CFPA), a government-organized non-governmental organization (GONGO) that has experimented with distinctive approaches to poverty alleviation involving various local actors, particularly through the Bonavilla (BV) project. BV is a community-based rural tourism development project which ran from 2000 to 2022, across two significant phases: policy formation (2000-2012) and policy adoption and implementation (2013-2022). BV represents a paradigm shift towards community-driven development and grassroots participation, serving as a model for participatory and community-based programs in rural areas (Liu, 2021). We employ the Multiple Streams Framework (MSF, Kingdon, 2014) to analyze policy-making in authoritarian China. While the MSF was developed to study policy making in democratic countries, recent studies have shown its applicability in authoritarian states under certain conditions (van den Dool, 2023). The framework has hardly been used to analyze poverty alleviation policies in China. Our analysis draws from diverse data sources such as interviews, site visits, and public documents, allowing a deep exploration of BV and policy processes. The paper aims to address three key questions: 1) How does a GONGO act as a policy entrepreneur in China? 2) How do grassroots and central agencies influence policy innovation within BV? 3) What lessons can be extracted from BV's processes for understanding and adjusting MSF in autocracies? This examination of the BV project sheds light on policy entrepreneurs and grassroots participation in shaping policy outcomes in authoritarian contexts, enriching the discourse on poverty alleviation strategies. (Based on collaborative research with Prof. Wil Hout at International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University.)
Location: Lisbon, Portugal
Date: 10-July-2023
Panel at European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes Annual Conference | Rural Community Rationality: The Behavioral Logic of Chinese Peasants in Community-Driven Development and Marketization
Community-driven development (CDD) is a widely used approach that emphasizes the value of local participation and empowerment. However, CDD projects are often criticized for their failures in engaging local community members and transforming local decision-making in a lasting way (Casey, 2018). Many scholars have attributed this phenomenon to constraints such as insufficient social capital (Chen, 2010) or the time cost of participation (Casey, 2018). However, both of these accounts fail to examine the obstacles to implementing CDD from the perspective of the participants or indigenous community members. Drawing from the experience of rural community development in China, I argue that the local population's value system has played a crucial role in their cooperation with external donors. Simply assuming that villagers follow the same modern rationality (e.g., the homo economicus hypothesis) as external donors leads to a reductionist view of the interpretation and motivation system of locals. Although behavioral economics has started to recognize the role of the poor's psychological mechanisms in development processes (Banerjee & Duflo, 2007), this individualistic-based analysis overlooks the impact of cultural context, governance traditions, and norms on participants' mindsets. Instead, it limits the analysis of local behavior logic to the premise of individualistic values and the homo economicus hypothesis. In contrast to the behavior logic derived from studies on WEIRD (Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic) populations, the concept of "community rationality" refers to small peasants' indiscriminate attitude towards the value of land, capital, and labor within the community, and the appreciation of community welfare and mutual assistance (Adams, 1986; Bryceson, 2000; Edelman, 2005; Scott, 1977; Polanyi, 1944). Scholars have also discussed the importance of similar concepts, such as "village rationality" and "peasant rationality," as the basis for China's rural development and governance (Keister & Nee, 2001; Wen & Dong, 2010). They believe that under village rationality, the rural community acts as a whole to develop and transform, which reduces transactional costs and creates organization rent (Li, 2012; Wen & Dong, 2010; Xu, 2006). These claims resonate with the notion of bottom-up development in CDD. However, current literature lacks an understanding of the psychological mechanism driving such rationality and the evolution of its effective boundaries. This analysis adopts and develops the concept of "community rationality" to understand the peasants' behavior logic in the context of CDD. Using the Relational Model Theory (RMT; Fiske, 1991, 1992, 2004), I examine the small peasants' agency, joint decision-making, and participation in collaborating with outsiders. Specifically, I look into peasants' cooperation in improving community economic and public welfare activities and their interaction with external stakeholders in bottom-up development and governance. I use five village development cases, extracted from fieldwork and historical documents, to investigate peasants' community rationality and its interaction with sociocultural evolution and marketization. The cases include a rural revolutionary base from the 1930s, a village upholding strong collective traditions, and three villages where drastic transformation happened between 2010-2020. I also complement the analysis with interview scripts extracted from open sources.
Location: The Hague, Netherlands
Date: 22-November-2024
Workshop at European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes | The Relevance of Development Studies
Location: Rotterdam, Netherlands
Date: 12 Mar 2024
Invited Talk at Erasmus University Rotterdam Lustrum Event | Strategies for Reaching “Hard-to-Reach” Groups in Community Research
Based on her fieldwork experience with engaging "hard-to-reach" populations in rural China, Zhiqi highlighted the importance of engaging hard-to-reach populations across various disciplines. While scholars often prioritise engagement methods, pre-research preparations and community partnerships are equally crucial. Effective engagement entails ethical considerations, participatory communication, and building trust through sustained efforts. Zhiqi also discussed how collaboration with diverse stakeholders is essential, challenging assumptions shaped by Western academia. Zhiqi: “Co-designing research with local partners is imperative due to the contextual nature of engagement. Despite frustrations and barriers, fostering a supportive scholarly community and persisting through challenges can lead to profound rewards, enriching understanding, and driving meaningful social change.”
