Carwyn Morris is a University Lecturer (Assistant Professor) of Digital China. He is a Human Geographer who acquired a PhD from the London School of Economics and worked as a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Manchester. Carwyn's research interests include migration, mobility, governance, territory, zines, and wanghong (internet fame). Carwyn explores all of these topics as hybrid phenomena that take place across 'digital' and 'physical' spaces. You can find Carwyn on Twitter @carwyn.

More information about Carwyn Morris

Fields of interest

Carwyn is interested in migration, mobility, governance, territory, zines, and wanghong (internet fame). Carwyn explores all of these topics as hybrid phenomena that take place across 'digital' and 'physical' spaces, for instance, mobility across digital borders and the production of wanghong cities.

Research

Carwyn's PhD research was concerned with the spatialization of governance in Beijing and China's digital territory, and how attempts to govern are resisted through spatial practice. In one strand of this research, Carwyn examined how the Beijing government used space as the medium of control over the population in ways that negatively affected the capacity for migrants to remain in Beijing. Carwyn then examined how these forms of governance were resisted through mobility and place making, including on Weixin (WeChat). In another strand of this research, Carwyn explored resistance to the eviction of the so-called "low-end population" in November and December 2017. Carwyn examined how anti-evictions groups emerged on Weibo and Weixin, how they were digitally governed, and how digital governance was resisted.

More recently Carwyn has been examining wanghong (internet fame). Carwyn is exploring how wanghong is spatialized in urban and rural areas of China and Europe, how wanghong affects how urban space is imagined, how spectacle is produced and how the benefits of wanghong are uneveny distributed. 

Finally, Carwyn is also interested in self-publishing, zines, and fashion. Carwyn has recently collaborated with fashion designer Janny Ye, of seventyfive, and photographer, Liz Hingley, to explore the 1930s Chinese women's magazine Linglong through fashion, photography, interview, and magazine publishing. Carwyn has collaborated with seventyfive on the production of clothes, has made five magazines, and co-curated an exhibition in London on the project, called Pomelo.

Grants and awards

Recent Grants:

• Hallsworth Conference Fund, for the Pomelo project
• SEED Research Fund, University of Manchester
• School of Social Sciences Small Reserach Grant, University of Manchester
• Economic and Social Research Council, PhD Scholarship
• Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation, Doctoral Fellowship

Curriculum vitae

• Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Manchester China Institute, University of Manchester
• PhD Human Geography and Urban Studies, Department of Geography and Environment, London School of Economics and Political Sciences
• MSc China in Comparative Perspective, Department of Anthropology, London School of Economics and Political Sciences
• BA Chinese and International Relations, East Asian Studies, University of Leeds

Publications