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School of Journalism and Communication
Assistant Professor
The Chinese University of Hong Kong (since 9/2005)
Primary tasks: Research, teaching, advising responsibilities in the M.A. program “Global Communication”
Academic Profile
My research focuses on the intersections between migration, transnational communication, and collective identity enactment. I am specifically interested in how people who migrate (voluntarily and involuntarily) enact their sociocultural and political identities and which collective ways of being are made salient at which particular moments in time.
Theoretically and methodologically, I study identity enactment and communication from a language and social interaction and critical communication perspective.
Identity mobilization, grouping processes, and resistance have been important foci in my research. For example, I have shown how Iraqis in the U.S. mobilized their refugee identities before and after the War in Iraq or how Palestinians in the U.S. created community based on shared sociopolitical goals through narrative practices.
Lately, I have focused on forced migration, transnational communication, and space. With the support of a USD 63,000 grant from the General Research Fund of Hong Kong, I am exploring how forced migrants communicate within receiving societies and engage in mediated and non-mediated advocacy practices. I am particularly interested in the role of legal identities (e.g., speaking from the position of asylum seeker in contrast to recognized resettlement refugee) and space/place constructions (e.g., living in heterotopic spaces like asylum shelters) in these processes. As a researcher and teacher focusing on transnational and intercultural communication processes, I am also coordinating the Global Communication Program in the School of Journalism and Communication at CUHK.
Education
Ph.D. Communication
University of Washington/USA
M.A. English Philology and Organizational
Management
University of Mannheim/Germany
Studies Abroad
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA (1994-1995)
University of Malaga, Spain (Summer 1993)
