Mingyuan Zhang

Biography

Mingyuan Zhang graduated from the Department of Anthropology at the University of Western Ontario in 2018. Her research explores how the meaning of “being Chinese” is culturally and socially constructed in northern Madagascar, focusing on identity-shaping encounters between Mandarin-speaking Chinese and Malagasy people in three particular contexts: 1) a sugar plantation managed by a Chinese stated-owned corporation; 2) networks of Chinese and Malagasy private businessmen who enable the movement of cheap Chinese commodities from Guangzhou, China to northern Madagascar; and 3) the classrooms of the Confucius Institute - a worldwide educational project sponsored by the Chinese government aiming to promote Chinese language and culture. She is currently working as a part-time assistant professor at Western. She speaks and writes Mandarin Chinese and English fluently, and has a working knowledge of French and the dialect of Malagasy spoken in northern Madagascar.

Publications:
https://jiows.mcgill.ca/article/view/79
https://cas-sca.journals.uvic.ca/index.php/anthropologica/article/view/327