Pamela P. Tsui

My research examines how actors navigate restrictive social and political orders, from repression and democratic erosion to heteronormative expectations in everyday life. Two questions animate this work: How do people and organizations pursue commitments, aspirations, and desires that are stigmatized, suppressed, or rendered illegitimate? And how do they negotiate these constraints without simply complying with or resisting them? This research program has produced publications in American Sociological Review (forthcoming),  Gender & Society, Sexualities, and Law & Society Review, public-facing scholarship in Critical Asia Archives and other outlets, as well as paper awards from the American Sociological Association and the Hong Kong Sociological Association. 

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My dissertation draws on eventful temporality and relational economic sociology to theorize how movement repression reshapes social life over time. Based on fieldwork in Hong Kong and Canada, it traces the transnational afterlife of Hong Kong’s 2019 protests by examining how supporters reimagine and repurpose money across changing political conditions.

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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.