Kristin BuhrowCohort 2019

• MPhil, Tibetan and Himalayan Studies, University of Oxford
• BS, Anthropology, Clemson University
• BA, Modern Languages: Mandarin Chinese, Clemson University

Fundamentally, I am interested in subjectivity formation, ethnic and racial identification, and how we come to understand ourselves and our positions within our communities through artistic performance, day-to-day interaction, and the kin and community relationships nurtured through these activities.

For my dissertation research, I am working with several groups of artists who practice and perform Chinese Dance and are based in the American South. Like Irish Dance, Folclórica Mexicana, Bharatanatyam, and many other dance forms, Chinese Dance is an artistic tradition named for its nation of origin and open to be practiced by people from all backgrounds. I work with diverse groups of artists in which different dancers have varying claims to and relationships with the concept of Chineseness (including ethnically Chinese people, non-Chinese people, mixed race people, and transracial adoptees), and explore how their practice and performance of Chineseness through dance may or may not affect their self-understanding, their relationships to different local and international communities, and their sense of political coalition and solidarity with different minority groups, and their subjective senses of safety, particularly during and immediately-post Covid.

Advisor: Dr. Knauft