{"id":12663,"date":"2021-10-27T16:00:05","date_gmt":"2021-10-27T20:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/anthrop\/?post_type=profile&#038;p=12663"},"modified":"2026-08-27T09:56:25","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T13:56:25","slug":"chun-yi-sum-2","status":"publish","type":"profile","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/anthrop\/profile\/chun-yi-sum-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Chun-Yi Sum"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Areas of Expertise<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Identity, Ethnicity, Citizenship, Affects and Emotions, Kinship and Family, Civil Society, China, East Asia <\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>About<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Chun-Yi Sum is a sociocultural anthropologist specializing in the politics of identity and belonging in China. Her research examines university students\u2019 experimental practices of space making and civic participation in late-socialist China. Dr. Sum\u2019s book manuscript, based on ethnographic research among student volunteers and extracurricular activity participants in a Chinese university, analyzes how young people rejected or repurposed state platitudes about socialist citizenship and patriotic mobilization, creating new conditions for reimagining civic rights and responsibilities. It documents how students\u2019 strategic participation in or retreat from public politics recast moral personhood and responsible citizenship not as proactive engagement in the present but an ongoing project of self-cultivation and capacity building for the future.<\/p>\n<p>In addition, Dr. Sum has since 2016 worked with behavioral ecologists to compare emerging patterns of social inequality in matrilineal and patrilineal Mosuo (Na) communities in southwestern China. This collaborative research investigates the impact of market integration on health outcomes, gender inequality, family structure, and social networks. Results are to date published in academic journals including Nature Human Behavior, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, American Journal of Physical Anthropology, and Matrix: A Journal for Matricultural Studies. Dr. Sum\u2019s ongoing research in Mosuo and Nuosu communities continues to examine how poverty alleviation measures and education policies reshape ethnic inequality and state-society relationship in the region.<\/p>\n<p>Dr. Sum holds faculty appointment at BU\u2019s College of General Studies.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cgs\/profile\/chun-yi-sum\/\">View Dr. Sum\u2019s Faculty Profile at the College of General Studies (CGS)<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Selected Publications<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cIron Brothers and Dear Customers: Fictive Kinship and Social Change in China,\u201d with Jason Jiansheng Li, in Family Beyond Family: Varieties of Kinship Experience (2024), ed. Parker Shipton and James Ito-Adler. Berghahn Books. Pp. 131-153<\/li>\n<li>\u201cBeyond Romantic Partnerships: Sese, Gender Egalitarianism, and Kinship Diversity in Mosuo Society,\u201d with Tami Blumenfield and Siobh\u00e1n M. Cully, in Gender in Cross-Cultural Perspective (2024, 8th Edition), ed. Adrienne E. Strong and Richard Powis. Routledge, Pp.175\u201390<\/li>\n<li>\u201cHierarchy, Resentment, and Pride: Politics of Identity and Belonging among Mosuo, Yi, and Han in Southwest China,\u201d with Tami Blumenfield, Mary K. Shenk, and Siobh\u00e1n M. Mattison, Modern China 48.3 (2022): 568\u201392<\/li>\n<li>\u201cPolitics of Indifference: Mourning Wang Yue in Late Socialist China,\u201d HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 11.3 (2021): 986\u201399<\/li>\n<li>\u201cA Great Leap of Faith: Limits to China\u2019s University Cities,\u201d Urban Studies 55.7 (2018):1460\u201376<\/li>\n<li>\u201cFrom Water to Tears: Extracurricular Activities and the Search for Substance in China\u2019s Universities,\u201d Children\u2019s Geographies 16.1 (2018):15\u201326<\/li>\n<li>\u201cSuffering and Tears: Authenticity and Student Volunteerism in Post-Reform China,\u201d Ethos 45.3 (2017): 409\u201329<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Select Courses<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>CAS AN 101 Introduction to Sociocultural Anthropology<\/li>\n<li>CAS AN 252 Ethnicity and Identity<\/li>\n<li>CAS AN 260 Sex and Gender in Anthropological Perspective<\/li>\n<li>CAS AN 379 China: Tradition and Transformation<\/li>\n<li>CGS SS 103 Politics, Economies, and Social Change: The Ancient World through the Enlightenment<\/li>\n<li>CGS SS 104 Politics, Economies, and Social Change: The Industrial Revolution to the Digital Revolution<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"author":13332,"template":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/anthrop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profile\/12663"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/anthrop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profile"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/anthrop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/profile"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/anthrop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13332"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/anthrop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profile\/12663\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16942,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/anthrop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profile\/12663\/revisions\/16942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/anthrop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}