Yang (韩阳) is a third-year DPhil candidate in International Relations and Swire Scholar at St Antony’s College. Her doctoral research focuses on contemporary China-Africa relations, exploring China’s outlook on international hierarchies through its discourse on Africa with a particular focus on the intersections of race, class and gender. Yang’s research interests include China’s foreign policy, poststructuralist feminism, postcolonialism, international hierarchies, and critical security studies. Yang holds an MSc degree in International Relations Research (Distinction) from LSE and a BA in International Politics (First Class; with a double major in Psychology) from Peking University. Yang’s MSc thesis offered a postcolonial account of China’s gender performativity during the Sino-Indian Border War. Previously, she also studied the dynamics of China’s national role conceptions since 1989.
Yang worked for UNIDO as a gender expert providing gender and socio-economic analysis in Chinese contexts and offered policy recommendations for gender mainstreaming of environmental policies in China. Yang also works as a research assistant for the Climate South project at the Blavatnik School of Government.
Research
Yang's research interests include:
- Feminism,
- Foreign Policy and diplomacy,
- Gender,
- Identity,
- International order
Teaching
- China-Africa relations;
- China's foreign policy;
- IR feminism;
- critical security studies;
- discourse analysis
Awards
- Swire Scholar (2018 - )
- Susan Kidd Grant, St Antony’s College, University of Oxford (2018)
- Kwang-Hua Educational Foundation for Distinguished Senior Students (2014)
Publications
Conference Papers and Presentations
- Gender Analysis Report: Improvement of the Environmental Performance of the Foam Sector — Phase-out and Management of Hexabromocyclododecane (HBCD) in China, United Nations Industrial Development Organisation, 2020
- “Building a Feminine Self through War”, research presented at the International History of East Asia Seminar, China Centre, University of Oxford, March 2019
- “China’s gender performativity during the Sino-Indian Border War 1962: a historical analysis”, conference paper presented at the 11th Annual Conference of Chinese Community of Political Science and International Studies, July 2018
- An Empirical Analysis of the Marriage Values and Situations of Female PhD Students at X University, New Feminist Studies Weekly (新女学周刊), 2018
