Professor Anna Lora-Wainwright

Anna joined OSGA in 2009, jointly appointed by the School of Geography and the Environment. She was promoted to Professor in 2018. She has a PhD in Social and Cultural Anthropology from Oxford University; an MA in Chinese Studies and a BA in Anthropology, both from the School of Oriental and African Studies, London.
 

She is the author of two monographs on contemporary rural China and of numerous articles in the fields of medical anthropology and environmental politics.
 

Her research to date has focused on evolving forms of morality and practices of care in China and among overseas Chinese. She is most interested in lived experience and the ways in which individuals, families and communities find ways of making sense of hardship and exerting agency—whether in the context of forced relocation and land loss, exposure to environmental harm, everyday forms of environmentalism or in facing the challenges of sustaining relationships across transnational borders.
 

Her current research concerns Chinese communities in Venice and (with Thomas Johnson and Katherine Wong) Zero-waste Living in Urban China. Anna also expanded her interest in environmental justice beyond China, and in 2021 began undertaking collaborative work on toxicity and activism in Italy.

Supervisees

• Teresa Irigoyen Lopez
• Mingxuan Li
• Katherine Yuet Yan Wong