Yunhan Wen

I’m a sociologist-in-training at Princeton University. I study informal settlements called urban villages (城中村) in Southern China as a way to understand China's changing urban political economy. Born and bred in Shanghai, China, I'm also trying to make sense of what "the urban" means under the meticulous planning of the party-state.

I believe that sociology is about the seen but unnoticed, and we cannot understand social phenomena if we put them in isolation from each other. Consequently, I'm omnivorous in my intellectual interests and methods, perhaps too much for my own good. So far, I have done research on: sexual practices among older adults in rural South Africa, computational methods that treat text as data, and the history of bathroom construction in the PRC.

I also believe in the ability of sociological knowledge to change the world--granted, agency can be a church, but don't we all need something to believe in.