I am a doctoral student at the Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies (ACE) at Lund University. My PhD project applies a multi-method qualitative research design and seeks to examine how the Chinese state's ethnopolitics shapes the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and how Inner Mongols perceive their national identity and (re)-engineers Mongolness in a nationalizing Chinese nation. Instead of viewing Inner Mongols as having static self-identification, the research sees ethnic identity as a result of torturous yet regenerative process and ethnic differences not as ex post alterity but rather as a force field where minority groups could thrive through ethnic diplomacy.

My research interests include Chinese ethnicity and borderlands, nationalism, Islam/Muslims in China, and the significance of sense of belonging in modern societies.