Pamela P. Tsui

My research program is driven by two commitments. The first is substantive: I study how people navigate repressive forces in everyday life, whether under the heteronormative regime of normalcy or amid the erosion of democratic conditions. The second is theoretical: I foster conversations across sociological subfields and disciplinary boundaries, bringing together literatures that rarely speak to one another to generate new analytic frameworks. These commitments have resulted in refereed publications in Gender & Society, Sexualities, and Law & Society Review, public sociology work in Critical Asia Archives and other news outlets, and multiple paper awards from the American Sociological Association, the Hong Kong Sociological Association, among others. 

 

My dissertation draws on relational economic sociology to develop a new analytic lens for understanding how major political events reshape social life over time. Based on 179 in-depth interviews and 187 event observations in Hong Kong and Canada, it examines the transnational afterlife of the 2019 Hong Kong pro-democracy movement by analyzing how supporters reimagine money.

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Before starting graduate school, I worked as a writer, performer, and coordinator in an experimental theatre company. I am also a hobbyist photographer. All the photos on this site are my own.