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Dr Tom Cliff
Contacts
Tom Cliff is a Lecturer in Anthropology and the political economy of China at the School of Culture, History, and Language, in the College of Asia and the Pacific. He convenes the Bachelor of Philosophy (Humanities and Social Sciences), or PhB (HaSS) — the ANU's elite and demanding undergraduate research program in the HaSS disciplines.
Tom is currently investigating non-state welfare and public goods provision in rural China. The research is centrally concerned with charity "model" innovation, model dissemination and the spread of ideas, and state charity mobilisation.
In 2018, Tom's first book Oil and Water: Being Han in Xinjiang (Chicago University Press, 2016) won the Association for Asian Studies' prestigious E Gene Smith prize for Best Book on Inner Asia.
Please see Google Scholar for recent publications.
Research interests
Research interests
China's Motor: Entrepreneurs and private enterprise. Family and lineage.
Institutions: of production, market, and social order.
Charity: State structures and mobilisation. Non-state welfare and public goods.
Experiences: of frontier settlement; of the Socialist State-Owned Enterprise.
Groups
- Researcher, Corporate engagement and action
- Researcher, Extreme events and future scenarios
- Researcher, Low carbon and resilient cities
Current student projects
Stefanie Kam: Securitisation, Desecuritisation and Counter-Securitisation (PhD; Panel member)
Jasmine Wang: The Ultra Rich in the PRC (PhD; Supervisor)
Past student projects
Alex Pan: Competing Media Perspectives on China's Economic Situation, 1945-1949 (PhB; Supervisor)
Alana Tolman: Social and Political Aspects of Bruneian Tertiary Education Policy (Hons; Supervisor)
Yuan Xiaoxi: The Influence of English on Modern Chinese through the 20th century (MAPS; Supervisor)
Lucy Zheng: Power of Language: Political Slogans, Cyber Censorship and Increasing Nationalism in 2010s China (MAPS; Supervisor)
Li Linshan: Lineage Groups and Modernity in Contemporary Southeast China (MAPS; Supervisor)
Ingrid Mao: Contemporary Banality in China (PhB; Supervisor)
Xu Yiwen: Collective Parental Anxiety about After-Class Education in China (MA Advanced; Supervisor)