Originally from Minsk, Belarus, I came to Manchester as a Chevening Scholar in 2000 and have called the city home ever since. After completing a PhD in International Relations at the University of Manchester, I joined the Politics department in 2006.

Bringing together the study of nationalism, ethnicity, gender, migration, citzenship, intimacy and borders, I research how personal lives intersect with state projects and global transformations. I am the author of Overseas Chinese, Ethnic Minorities and Nationalism: De-Centering China (Routledge, 2012) and Post-Soviet Brides in the China Dream (Cambridge 2026).

In 2026-2027 I'll be teaching POLI31022 Intimate Geopolitics of Global China

Current PhD students

Wang Zhuo (with Dr. Bei Ju) 'Affective Practices and Solidarity on Social Media: A Feminist Digital Emotional Geographies Study of Chinese Female International Students', from September 2025.

Zhang Chengzhi (with Prof. Bridget Byrne) 'Race, Identity, and Educational Equality: Children of Immigrants in China's Public Schools', from September 2022.

Hu Zixuan (with Prof. Peter Gries) 'Subjectivity, Identity, and the Everyday: Hong Kong and Mainland Chinese Student Interactions on a UK University Campus', from September 2020.

Completed PhD theses

Dr. Choen Yin (Helen) Chan (with Richard Fay) 'An Intercultural Study of Intergenerational Relations and Cultural Identities within Chinese-British Families', 2017-2025 (part-time)

Dr. Xu Pengfei (with Dr. David Stroup) 'Chinese Governmentality: A Foucauldian Analysis of China's Social Credit System',  2021-2025.

Dr. Isabel Morrell (with Dr. Andreja Zevnik) 'The Everyday Lives of People Seeking Sanctuary: Borders, Belonging and Resistance',  2021-2025.

Dr. Wang Tao, 'Serving Democracy: How Confucian Culture Shapes Representation in Taiwan', completed in 2021. Dr. Wang is currently a Hallsworth Fellow in Chinese Political Economy at the University of Manchester.

Dr. David Tobin (with William A. Callahan) ‘Nation-building and ethnic boundaries in China’s Northwest’, completed July 2013. Dr. Tobin David is a Lecturer in East Asian Studies at the Univesity of Sheffield.

Dr. Malgorzata Jakimow (with Japhy Wilson) ‘Imagining space for change? The negotiation of internal migrant workers’ citizenship in China’, completed July 2015. Dr. Jakimow is a Lecturer in Chinese Politics at the University of Durham.

Dr. Diane Tang (with Roger Mac Ginty) 'Socialisation from below - the role of Myanmar civil society in China's adoption of public participation norms', completed in July 2016. Dr Tang works as a Manager at ICMM.

Dr. Muhammad Rakhmat (with Stuart Shields) 'Examining the Implications of the Silk Road Initiatives and the Asian Infrustructure Investment Bank activities on China-Gulf Cooperation Council Relations',  Sept 2015-Dec 2018. Dr. Rakhmat works as a Director of the China-Indonesia Desk at the Center of Economic and Law Studies in Jakarta.