Rate My Professor John Wei

Dr John Wei is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology, Gender Studies and Criminology at the University of Otago, where he serves as Chair of the Postgraduate Committee. He holds a BA from Lanzhou University, a Postgraduate Diploma from Beijing Foreign Studies University (BFSU), an MA from the University of Auckland, and a PhD from the University of Auckland and the University of Melbourne. Prior to his current position, Wei held multiple teaching and research roles at the University of Melbourne, the University of Auckland, and the University of Canterbury. He brings a background in Culture and Communication as well as Media, Film and Television.

Wei's research focuses on transnational gender, sexuality, and queer studies through an intersectional approach combining urban sociology, ethnography, migration and mobilities, and media and film studies to interrogate social changes in global and regional flows of talents, cultures, and capital. Currently, he explores social practices and cultural productions of gender and sexuality comparatively across Anglophone and Sinophone societies, considering geographical, social, generational, cultural, and gender/sexual mobilities in the 21st century. He is the author of Queer Chinese Cultures and Mobilities: Kinship, Migration, and Middle Classes (Hong Kong University Press, 2020). Key recent publications include "Rethinking Queer (Asian) Studies: Geopolitics, Covid-19, and post-covid queer theories and mobilities" in Journal of Homosexuality (2024), "Stretched kinship: Queer female university students negotiating family and identity" with Annaliese Boyd in Sexualities (2024), and editorship of Proceedings of the Te Taura Takata Sociology, Gender Studies & Criminology Postgraduate Symposium VIII (2024). At Otago, Wei coordinates and teaches GEND 101 Gender in Everyday Life and GEND 205/305 Gender and the Media, and supervises postgraduate theses on queer kinship, transgender refugees, sexual violence prevention, and related topics. His research interests include queer studies, migration and mobilities, social class and social change, media, film and communication, China, Asian and Sinophone studies, and transnational and intersectional methods.