Ping-Chun Hsiung

Biography

Ping-Chun Hsiung is a Professor in the Department of Sociology (UTSC) and is affiliated with the Asian Institute at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy. She has carried out ethnographic fieldwork, interviews, and archival research to advance knowledge and theory in gender studies and qualitative research at local and international levels. Over the last two decades, she has contributed to the development of women’s NGOs in China and the establishment of women’s studies program in Chinese higher education. In recent years, she examines the practices and development of qualitative research as a means of social science inquiry in the global South, and its relation to the dominance of the global North. To derive a history of social science inquiry from the global South, she uses China as a case study. She conceptualizes Investigative Research developed by Mao Zedong as a unique research tradition. She is conducting research on the politics of Investigative Research during China’s Great Leap Forward (1958-62), funded by SSHRC (2017-22). She establishes Forum of Critical Chinese Qualitative Research to advance critical Chinese qualitative research as a locally grounded and globally informed interpretative paradigm.