Clare (Xiaoqian) Wan is a 2024-25 postdoctoral fellow at the SNF Agora Institute. Her research broadly speaks to economic sociology, international migration, and China’s political economy. In particular, her doctoral research that emerged out of a year-long fieldwork explored the political and cultural dynamics influencing the development of a major wholesale marketplace in China and the formation of transnational trades between China and Africa. She examined state-society and interpersonal relationships using archival, interview, and ethnographic data. Her prior work also examines racism and interracial dynamics in business settings.
At the Agora Institute, she will work on multiple projects related to China’s economic development and corruption under the mentorship of Dr. Yuen Yuen Ang, amongst other faculty members. Before joining Agora, Wan worked as the survey manager for the Pandemic Journaling Project and briefly as a business consultant focused on the Chinese consumer market.
Wan earned her PhD in Sociology from Brown University. She holds a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Zhejiang University in China and a master’s degree in sociology from the University of Chicago.