Sustainable social infrastructure: Production, reproduction, and consumption
The CCS Research Cluster is dedicated to critically investigating the profound relationship between infrastructure, social dynamics, and the pursuit of sustainable urban futures. Engaging with the “infrastructural turn” across the social sciences, the cluster focuses its research lens on the entire lifecycle of infrastructures—from their development and production to their eventual consumption and use—to fundamentally understand how sustainable cities and resilient urban environments can be built and maintained.
A foundational premise of this cluster is the recognition that cities are complex, dynamic systems shaped by the interplay of both human agency and material, physical processes. To this end, the research is inherently interdisciplinary, drawing on insights from urban studies, geography, sociology, anthropology, planning, and related fields. This critical, interdisciplinary approach is essential for developing nuanced understandings of the challenges inherent in achieving urban sustainability. Crucially, the cluster advocates for a perspective that prioritizes social solutions over a purely engineering or technocratic focus, recognizing that the long-term resilience and equity of cities are often determined by their social organization and communal capacities.
The cluster conducts rigorous, primarily ethnographic and interdisciplinary research, with a strong focus on social infrastructures in diverse geographical contexts, including China and beyond. This empirical work spans a variety of critical urban occasions and sites, enabling a holistic understanding of urban resilience building. Key research areas include:
Social Infrastructures and Livelihoods:Investigating the role of street vendors and informal economies, and how consumption spaces are designed, utilized, and governed.
Urban Ecologies and Environmental Governance:Exploring the interaction between built environments, natural systems, and the practices that constitute urban ecologies.
Mobility, Labour, and Migration:Focusing on the experiences and role of migrant workers in shaping urban form and function, and the social infrastructures necessary to support their lives and labour.
By examining these diverse settings, the cluster aims to develop critical understandings of how social infrastructures can be deliberately strengthened and nurtured to enhance the overall resilience of the urban system against shocks and stresses.
A core tenet of the CCS Research Cluster is its commitment to bridging the gap between academic scholarship and practical application. The cluster actively seeks to translate research outputs into tangible, practical use, working closely with policymakers, non-governmental organizations, and urban stakeholders.
Academic Activities and Collaboration:
The cluster maintains a vibrant intellectual environment by holding regular academic activities, including:
Research Seminars and Workshops:Providing platforms for internal discussion and peer feedback.
Invited Talks:Hosting leading national and international scholars to foster knowledge exchange.
The cluster operates within a wide network of collaboration, working closely with peers and colleagues both domestically in China and internationally. This extensive partnership is fundamental to its high-impact research productivity.
Dissemination and Impact:
The research conducted by the cluster is disseminated through various high-profile channels, contributing significantly to national and international scholarly discourse. Researchers are highly active in producing outputs for leading peer-reviewed journals, including prestigious journals such as Progress in Human Geography, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Urban Studies and others. Furthermore, the cluster is engaged in running a portfolio of research projects, encompassing both national and international funding streams, and its members are consistently active participants in major national and international academic conferences, ensuring their research findings contribute directly to global knowledge production.
Core members:
Lefeng Lin
Lefeng Lin’s research interests include: (1) work and labor relations; (2) urban ethnography; and (3) state and civil society relations. His current research projects are: (1) a labor movement history focusing on the first three decades of China’s economic reform; (2) an ethnography of street vending, conducted in collaboration with students; and (3) the establishment of an urban ethnography lab with colleagues.
Catrina Schwendener
Catrina Schwendener is a social anthropologist specializing in urban China. Her research interests lie at the nexus of work and family life, examining both working-class labor and the experiences of childbirth and mothering. Her book-in-progress explores how traditional working-class families contend with flexibilization and precarization in China’s steel industry. Her upcoming research will focus on the experience of matrescence in China.
Liu Cao
Liu Cao is an urban cultural geographer whose research focuses on the everyday life of cities, urban consumption, and the relationship between cities and social changes. Her work is situated at the intersection of urban studies and cultural geography, aiming to enhance the understanding of the urban sphere. She maintains a particular interest in urban consumption in China, examining how new urban spaces are structured and transformed through consumption practices. A central theme throughout her scholarly work is the utilization of empirical research from China to engage in discourse with existing urban scholarship predominantly grounded in Western contexts.
Leif Johnson
Leif Johnson’s research centers on migration and the mechanisms of legal and social bordering, with a particular emphasis on the influence of gender in migration processes. His current research and scholarly work examines the experiences of male migrants entering the construction sector in the Yangtze River Delta, specifically within infrastructure projects.
SSI Research Cluster
Sustainable social infrastructure: Production, reproduction, and consumption
The CCS Research Cluster is dedicated to critically investigating the profound relationship between infrastructure, social dynamics, and the pursuit of sustainable urban futures. Engaging with the “infrastructural turn” across the social sciences, the cluster focuses its research lens on the entire lifecycle of infrastructures—from their development and production to their eventual consumption and use—to fundamentally understand how sustainable cities and resilient urban environments can be built and maintained.
A foundational premise of this cluster is the recognition that cities are complex, dynamic systems shaped by the interplay of both human agency and material, physical processes. To this end, the research is inherently interdisciplinary, drawing on insights from urban studies, geography, sociology, anthropology, planning, and related fields. This critical, interdisciplinary approach is essential for developing nuanced understandings of the challenges inherent in achieving urban sustainability. Crucially, the cluster advocates for a perspective that prioritizes social solutions over a purely engineering or technocratic focus, recognizing that the long-term resilience and equity of cities are often determined by their social organization and communal capacities.
The cluster conducts rigorous, primarily ethnographic and interdisciplinary research, with a strong focus on social infrastructures in diverse geographical contexts, including China and beyond. This empirical work spans a variety of critical urban occasions and sites, enabling a holistic understanding of urban resilience building. Key research areas include:
By examining these diverse settings, the cluster aims to develop critical understandings of how social infrastructures can be deliberately strengthened and nurtured to enhance the overall resilience of the urban system against shocks and stresses.
A core tenet of the CCS Research Cluster is its commitment to bridging the gap between academic scholarship and practical application. The cluster actively seeks to translate research outputs into tangible, practical use, working closely with policymakers, non-governmental organizations, and urban stakeholders.
Academic Activities and Collaboration:
The cluster maintains a vibrant intellectual environment by holding regular academic activities, including:
The cluster operates within a wide network of collaboration, working closely with peers and colleagues both domestically in China and internationally. This extensive partnership is fundamental to its high-impact research productivity.
Dissemination and Impact:
The research conducted by the cluster is disseminated through various high-profile channels, contributing significantly to national and international scholarly discourse. Researchers are highly active in producing outputs for leading peer-reviewed journals, including prestigious journals such as Progress in Human Geography, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Urban Studies and others. Furthermore, the cluster is engaged in running a portfolio of research projects, encompassing both national and international funding streams, and its members are consistently active participants in major national and international academic conferences, ensuring their research findings contribute directly to global knowledge production.
Core members:
Lefeng Lin
Lefeng Lin’s research interests include: (1) work and labor relations; (2) urban ethnography; and (3) state and civil society relations. His current research projects are: (1) a labor movement history focusing on the first three decades of China’s economic reform; (2) an ethnography of street vending, conducted in collaboration with students; and (3) the establishment of an urban ethnography lab with colleagues.
Catrina Schwendener
Catrina Schwendener is a social anthropologist specializing in urban China. Her research interests lie at the nexus of work and family life, examining both working-class labor and the experiences of childbirth and mothering. Her book-in-progress explores how traditional working-class families contend with flexibilization and precarization in China’s steel industry. Her upcoming research will focus on the experience of matrescence in China.
Liu Cao
Liu Cao is an urban cultural geographer whose research focuses on the everyday life of cities, urban consumption, and the relationship between cities and social changes. Her work is situated at the intersection of urban studies and cultural geography, aiming to enhance the understanding of the urban sphere. She maintains a particular interest in urban consumption in China, examining how new urban spaces are structured and transformed through consumption practices. A central theme throughout her scholarly work is the utilization of empirical research from China to engage in discourse with existing urban scholarship predominantly grounded in Western contexts.
Leif Johnson
Leif Johnson’s research centers on migration and the mechanisms of legal and social bordering, with a particular emphasis on the influence of gender in migration processes. His current research and scholarly work examines the experiences of male migrants entering the construction sector in the Yangtze River Delta, specifically within infrastructure projects.