Contact: [email protected] Twitter: @XiaoAlvinYang

Xiao Alvin Yang is currently a PhD candidate in political and economic science at Universität Kassel, Germany. He is also a visiting research associate at the Centre for International Policy Studies at the University of Ottawa, Canada, as well as at the York Centre for Asian Research and the Centre for Research on Latin American and the Caribbean at York University, Canada.

Current Research

His current research focuses on five interrelated areas: 1) International Relations Theories; 2) Global Political Economy and Development; 3) Economic Geography and Sociology; 4) Migration and Racism; 5) Research Methods. First, he examines the knowledge production of emerging IR theories around the world, especially in China, India, and Brazil. Besides, Canadian and German approaches to IR/IPE are of particular interest. Second, his research centers around the ongoing tensions among globalization, regionalization and nationalism in the global economy and their impacts on socio-economic development. Third, he applies economic geography and sociology to study cities, especially global cities, city clusters and megaregions, which are the central units that will constitute the future global economy. Fourth, he investigates the international and internal migration processes that shape cities and urban/suburban environments and their relationships with various forms of discrimination, especially racism. Fifth, Alvin is especially interested in experimenting and developing new qualitative and quantitative methods, especially digital methods aided by new technologies, to better understand these aforementioned complex phenomena.

Recent Projects

Recently, Alvin has led a number of projects, such as Theoretical Debates on Asian Series with support from the York Centre for Asian Research as well as Anti-Asian Racism During COVID-19 project jointly funded by the Canada-China Initiatives Fund and the Canadian Institutes of Health. He also co-led the Democracy in the Time of COVID-19 project, funded by the U of T COVID-19 Student Engagement Award from the Office of the Vice-President, International, University of Toronto. Moreover, Alvin is currently co-editing a book, The Return of Yellow Peril: Anti-Asian Racism during the COVID-19 Pandemic (tentative title). He also co-edits a special issue on varieties of Anti-Asian Racism from a transcultural perspective.

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