Dr Ying Tong
I have long been reflecting on how various individuals and groups, such as intellectuals, labourers, and “new women”, emerged as meaningful social categories and historical agents and how they have navigated modern Chinese history since 1900, a period marked by profound political and cultural transformations.
My current research focuses on popular religious rituals among middle-aged and older women in southeastern China. Previously, during my DPhil at the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at Oxford, I examined the self-fashioning processes of Chinese women warriors during the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression (1937–1945). I completed my academic training in the Chinese Department at Peking University (2017–2020), where I studied modern Chinese literature, with a particular focus on the political and social engagement of early twentieth-century intellectuals, especially female writers and revolutionaries.
Outside academia, I write stories that explore themes of self-discovery amid cultural shifts and social transformation in contemporary China.
Research Interests
Current Research:
Combining historical and anthropological perspectives, my current project explores why and how middle-aged and older women in southeastern China have participated in popular religious rituals over the past decade (2010–present). It is situated against the backdrop of a revival of traditional culture, in which religious practices, particularly those rooted in Buddhist, Taoist, and folk traditions, have become increasingly important in some women’s daily lives in both rural and urban areas. Central to this revival is a range of practices at the collective, household, and individual levels, including temple worship, scripture chanting, the creation of ritual symbols, and household ceremonies such as inviting Bodhisattvas into the home.
Through fieldwork combining ritual observation and oral history interviews, my project examines how, beyond spiritual devotion, these rituals provide a growing secular utility and a potential avenue for elderly care. Most of the women participants were born in the 1950s and 1960s and have experienced both the early PRC era and the rapid social transformations of the Reform period. For them, these activities not only reflect selectively absorbed beliefs about life and death drawn from Buddhist and other doctrines, but also offer spaces for socialisation, emotional and bodily healing, and post-retirement routine building. Several factors have contributed to their participation: (1) labour shaped by their gender roles in family and work within shifting social, cultural, and economic structures since the 1950s; (2) shared bodily experiences formed through socialist initiatives as well as demographic and reproductive policies; and (3) increasing personal needs in later life, particularly amid ageing and generational or marital tensions.
Doctoral Research:
My doctoral research, Heroines, Us, and Intimate Ties: Chinese Women Warriors’ Self-Fashioning during the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression (1937–1945), examines how women in wartime China shaped themselves into warriors and consolidated their self-images within the contexts of national resistance and social reform. Situating them in settings of public mobilisation, frontline service, secret operations, and rural reform, my research highlights four heroic archetypes: (1) chivalrous and romantic warriors; (2) practical labour providers; (3) unseen heroes in disguise; and (4) those embodying “collective heroism.” Some of these women were affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) or the Chinese Nationalist Party (GMD), while others navigated between, beyond, or outside these political factions.
To capture the complexity of their self-fashioning, I move beyond conventional analytical frameworks of patriotism, feminism, or party loyalty. Instead, I focus on the intimate ties these women forged with the communities they served or worked alongside. These ties are hybrid in nature, merging comradeship forged through wartime utility with personal, affective connections. They include imagined bonds with audiences, familial ties (both real and fictive kinship), sisterhood, revolutionary romantic partnerships, and attachments to organisations. Based on four case studies, my research argues that these intimate ties played a critical role in their processes of self-fashioning, specifically in the reconfiguration of their responsibilities, the optimisation of their gendered performances, and the formation of merit that, over time, evolved into specific political orientations, including party loyalty.
