Xintong Jia

Overview

Xintong is a PhD candidate in Sociology at City, University of London, supervised by Prof. Ros Gill and Dr Lia Litosseliti. Her research interests intersect media and gender, popular culture, feminism in post-socialist China, and qualitative research methods.

Xintong's latest chapter "Co-existing with Uncomfortable Reflexivity: Feminist Fieldwork abroad during the Covid-19 Pandemic" appears in the volume Difficult Conversations (2023). It provides a retrospective and reflexive account of ethical challenges and considerations, as experienced during the fieldwork in Xi’an, China between 2020 and 2021. By highlighting the notion of "uncomfortable reflexivity," she seeks to navigate new ways of understanding and addressing difficulties in the research process to transfer the feelings of confusion and despair into self-reconciliation, healing, and solidarity.

Xintong's chapter "Victoria’s Secret Goes to China: Femvertising and the Failed Promise of Empowerment" appears in the volume The Cultural Politics of Femvertising (2022). In this chapter, she analyses how the notion of empowerment has been carefully wrapped up in the narratives of racial diversity and bodily inclusiveness emphasised by Victoria’s Secret’s femvertising strategies, and how the neoliberal governmentality has extended its territory from women’s bodies to women’s minds.

When Xintong is not engaging in social science research, she enjoys traveling, photography, going to concerts, reading Chinese books, and chatting with friends.

Fellowships

• Fellow, Higher Education Academy

Publications by category