Amy Hanser (PhD, University of California-Berkeley) is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of British Columbia. Dr. Hanser’s research spans numerous subfields of sociology, from the sociology of work, gender, consumer culture and markets to service work in reform-era China, the regulation of street commerce in China cities, and contemporary street food scenes in North America. Current research includes a study of immigrant Chinese women’s experiences with childbirth and postpartum recovery in Canada, and a new study of public transit and people’s experiences riding the public bus. Dr. Hanser’s work has been published in Gender & Society, the Journal of Consumer Culture, Ethnic and Racial Studies, The China Quarterly, IJURR, and Sociology of Health and Illness, among other, diverse outlets. Her 2008 book, Service Encounters (Stanford University Press), was based upon research that received the 2006 Dissertation Award from the American Sociological Association.

Teaching Areas:

Consumption, Economic Sociology, Sociology of Food

Other Affiliations

Chair, UBC Press Publications Board

Faculty Associate, Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies

Research Topics

Culture and markets; gender and motherhood; consumption and inequality; service work; China.

Research Interests

Dr. Hanser’s past research has centered on topics such as work, gender, and the cultural aspects of markets, Past research includes a study of service work and class inequality in urban China, an examination of Chinese consumer goods in North America, and food safety and imported milk in China. Dr. Hanser has also studied the the regulation of street commerce in China and North America, and in particular at the way Chinese cities manage and in many cases are attempting to eliminate street vending, whereas (some) North American cities are embracing “street food” and food carts as emblems of cosmopolitan urbanity. Current research includes a study of immigrant Chinese women’s experiences with childbirth and postpartum recovery in Canada, and a new study of public transit and people’s experiences riding the public bus.

Dr. Hanser is also an award-winning teacher and a recipient of UBC’s Killam Teaching Prize in 2013.

Current Research

Immigrant new motherhood in Canada: Through an investigation of Chinese immigrant women’s experiences practicing “zuo yuezi” (“sitting the month,” traditional Chinese postpartum practices and care), this study seeks to understand how immigrants transport valued cultural practices to Canada, how Chinese immigrant women often experience new motherhood through the very specific context of zuo yuezi care practices and rules, and how the transnational context shapes intergenerational caregiving and authority relations in the families we studied. We have already published one article on how these new mothers mobilize medical authority and knowledge to contest the traditional knowledge and authority of their mothers and mothers-in-law. Future papers will investigate the complex dynamics of the transnational caregiving arrangements that support zuo yuezi in Canada as well as the gendered dynamics of this traditional practice.

Public Bus Study: Social theorists have long conceptualized modern cities as sites of encounter with strangers. But what happens when city dwellers actually encounter difference in close proximity?  The public bus offers a rich site for investigating this question: In many ways, public buses represent a paradigmatic urban space where strangers encounter and interact with one another in ways mundane yet nevertheless fundamental to contemporary urban life. This study seeks to understand the kinds of interactions that unfold on public buses, in an effort to understand how urban residents experience proximity with strangers—social “others” across many social categories, be it racial, ethnic, class, gender, age, mental wellness/illness, physical ability/disability, or even simply lifestyle.

Books

Hanser, Amy. 2008. Service Encounters: Class, Gender, and the Market for Social Distinction in Urban China. Stanford University Press.

About Service Encounters: Class, Gender, and the Market for Social Distinction in Urban China (2008):

This study explores how social and economic changes to Chinese society create new cultural values and forms of inequality. Amy Hanser examines changes to a particular set of jobs—service work, in this case salesclerk work—and the nature of the social interactions involved. It argues that a new “structure of entitlement,” which makes elite groups feel more entitled to public forms of respect and social esteem, is constructed in settings like new, luxury department stores. The book not only shows how this change involves increasingly unequal relations between clerks and customers, but also demonstrates how marketplaces have become sites where social differences—and inequalities—are recognized and justified. The study’s importance lies in its attention to ethnographic detail, its application of cultural theories of inequality to China, and its contribution to our understanding of contemporary China. Unlike other studies of inequality in urban China, this book takes a unique setting—the marketplace and the interactions between customers and salespeople—and a unique approach—the author herself worked as a salesclerk in three settings.
Available here from Stanford University Press

Selected Articles:

On immigration and motherhood:

With Yijia Zhang. “Be the Mother, Not the Daughter: Immigrant Chinese Women, Postpartum Care Knowledge, and Mothering Autonomy.” 2023. Sociology of Health and Illness: 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9566.13631

On Wuhan’s COVID-19 Lockdown period:

With Yue Qian. “Pregnant Under Quarantine: Women’s Agency and Access to Medical Care Under Wuhan’s COVID-19 Lockdown,”  2022. SSM—Qualitative Research 2022(2) .https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmqr.2022.100095

With Yue Qian. “How did Wuhan Residents Cope with a 76-day Lockdown?” 2021. Chinese Sociological Review, 53(1), 55-86.

On consumerism and motherhood in China

With Jialin Li. “The Hard Work of Feeding the Baby: Breastfeeding and Intensive Mothering in Contemporary Urban China,” 2018. The Journal of Chinese Sociology, special issue on cultural sociology, 4:18-38.

With Jialin Camille Li. “Opting Out? Gated Consumption, Infant Formula and China’s Affluent Urban Consumers.” 2015. The China Journal, 74:110-128.

On street vending and street food:

“Good Food in the City: How Cultural Ideas About Food Shape Street Vending Regulation,” 2021. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 45(3):519-534. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2427.12856

“From Hippie to Hip: City governance and two eras of street vending in Vancouver, Canada.” 2017. In Food Trucks, Cultural Identity, and Social Justice: From Loncheras to Lobsta Love, J. Agyeman, C. Matthews and H. Sobel, eds. Cambridge: MIT University Press, pp129-147.

“Street Politics: Street Vendors and Urban Governance in China.” 2016. The China Quarterly, 226:363-382.

With Zachary Hyde. “Foodies Remaking Cities.” 2014 Contexts, 13(3):44-49.

On consumerism and service work in contemporary China:

“Yellow Peril Consumerism: China and North America in an Era of Global Trade.” 2013. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 36(4):632-650. dx.doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2011.631559

“Uncertainty and the Problem of Value: Consumers, Culture and Inequality in Urban China” 2010. Journal of Consumer Culture 10(3):307-332.

“Is the Customer Always Right? Class, Service and the Production of Distinction in Chinese Department Stores.” 2007. Theory & Society, 36(5):415-35.

“The Gendered Rice Bowl: The Sexual Politics of Service Work in Urban China.” 2005. Gender & Society, 19(5):581-600.

Core Faculty