Ruby Lai
Biographic Data
| ID | 4159704 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Ruby Lai |
| GIVEN NAMES | Ruby |
| FAMILY NAME | Lai |
| SIGNATURE | LAI R |
| AFFILIATIONS | Lingnan University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7019-1939 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 8 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 8 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 8 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Remedial Labour and the materialities of housing precarity
The global housing crisis has rendered housing insecure and inadequate in sustaining family life and dignified living. Housing precarity is not merely a situation to live in but also to live with , requiring constant negotiation with housing difficulties across spatial, temporal and relational dimensions. Building on years of ethnographic fieldwork, I utilise the literature of materiality to uncover the invisible labour of tenants living in subdi…
From liberal to state feminism? Exploring gender politics amid political transition in Hong Kong
This article explores the gender outcomes of political transitions by investigating gender politics in Hong Kong from the colonial era to the post-2020 period. By drawing on official documents, media reports, and empirical studies, this article illuminates the mutually constitutive nature of political processes and gender politics. It analyzes the complementary, but conflicting, relationship between feminist movements and pro-democracy activism d…
Abortion caringscapes
The gender backlash intensified by reactionary politics and the heteronormative pronatalism resulting from fertility decline have posed increased challenges to reproductive justice, particularly threatening abortion rights. This study draws on the care literature and years of fieldwork on abortion in China and introduces the concept of ‘abortion caringscapes’ – the multidimensional terrain of care activities across time and space, in which women …
One country, two governances
Housing informality has emerged across developing and developed societies amid the global housing crisis. This article presents an intra-national comparative analysis of informal housing interventions in Hong Kong and Guangzhou, two major Chinese cities, to investigate the policies and discourses of urban housing informality and the factors shaping different governance regimes. A critical policy discourse analysis was conducted on official docume…
Is Scholar-Activism an Oxymoron? Reflecting on the Challenges and Opportunities for Scholarly Activism or Activist Scholarship in the Politics and Gender Field
Scholar-activism, which we define as scholarship that seeks to contribute knowledge to activism is often underappreciated. From a methodological perspective, the positionality of scholar-activists is too often misunderstood. Yet scholar-activism is a relatively common approach to generating new knowledge about hard-to-access, repressive contexts while also assisting political movements and their strategies. Feminist-informed scholarship necessita…
Is Scholar-Activism an Oxymoron? Reflecting on the Challenges and Opportunities for Scholarly Activism or Activist Scholarship in the Politics and Gender Field – Corrigendum
Understanding Migrant Familyhood through a Relational Spatio-Temporal Framework
Despite growing attention to relationality in sociological research, few studies have explored its application in the cross-border migration context, particularly the interplay between relationality and spatio-temporal dimensions in conditioning migrant im/mobilities and familyhood. This article proposes a relational spatio-temporal framework to uncover how relationality shapes the ways cross-border families navigate spatial and temporal im/mobil…
Political polarization and intimate distance
Political polarization not only threatens democracy, but also disrupts family lives, causing clashes between family members with discordant political orientations. This article examines how individuals negotiate family conflicts during political divides, by focusing on the Anti-Extradition Bill Movement in Hong Kong. Based on data drawn from interviews conducted with 37 self-identified protest participants, I develop the concept of intimate dista…
Is Scholar-Activism an Oxymoron? Reflecting on the Challenges and Opportunities for Scholarly Activism or Activist Scholarship in the Politics and Gender Field
Scholar-activism, which we define as scholarship that seeks to contribute knowledge to activism is often underappreciated. From a methodological perspective, the positionality of scholar-activists is too often misunderstood. Yet scholar-activism is a relatively common approach to generating new knowledge about hard-to-access, repressive contexts while also assisting political movements and their strategies. Feminist-informed scholarship necessita…
Understanding Migrant Familyhood through a Relational Spatio-Temporal Framework
Despite growing attention to relationality in sociological research, few studies have explored its application in the cross-border migration context, particularly the interplay between relationality and spatio-temporal dimensions in conditioning migrant im/mobilities and familyhood. This article proposes a relational spatio-temporal framework to uncover how relationality shapes the ways cross-border families navigate spatial and temporal im/mobil…
Political polarization and intimate distance
Political polarization not only threatens democracy, but also disrupts family lives, causing clashes between family members with discordant political orientations. This article examines how individuals negotiate family conflicts during political divides, by focusing on the Anti-Extradition Bill Movement in Hong Kong. Based on data drawn from interviews conducted with 37 self-identified protest participants, I develop the concept of intimate dista…
One country, two governances
Housing informality has emerged across developing and developed societies amid the global housing crisis. This article presents an intra-national comparative analysis of informal housing interventions in Hong Kong and Guangzhou, two major Chinese cities, to investigate the policies and discourses of urban housing informality and the factors shaping different governance regimes. A critical policy discourse analysis was conducted on official docume…
Is Scholar-Activism an Oxymoron? Reflecting on the Challenges and Opportunities for Scholarly Activism or Activist Scholarship in the Politics and Gender Field
Scholar-activism, which we define as scholarship that seeks to contribute knowledge to activism is often underappreciated. From a methodological perspective, the positionality of scholar-activists is too often misunderstood. Yet scholar-activism is a relatively common approach to generating new knowledge about hard-to-access, repressive contexts while also assisting political movements and their strategies. Feminist-informed scholarship necessita…
Is Scholar-Activism an Oxymoron? Reflecting on the Challenges and Opportunities for Scholarly Activism or Activist Scholarship in the Politics and Gender Field – Corrigendum
Understanding Migrant Familyhood through a Relational Spatio-Temporal Framework
Despite growing attention to relationality in sociological research, few studies have explored its application in the cross-border migration context, particularly the interplay between relationality and spatio-temporal dimensions in conditioning migrant im/mobilities and familyhood. This article proposes a relational spatio-temporal framework to uncover how relationality shapes the ways cross-border families navigate spatial and temporal im/mobil…
Political polarization and intimate distance
Political polarization not only threatens democracy, but also disrupts family lives, causing clashes between family members with discordant political orientations. This article examines how individuals negotiate family conflicts during political divides, by focusing on the Anti-Extradition Bill Movement in Hong Kong. Based on data drawn from interviews conducted with 37 self-identified protest participants, I develop the concept of intimate dista…
Remedial Labour and the materialities of housing precarity
The global housing crisis has rendered housing insecure and inadequate in sustaining family life and dignified living. Housing precarity is not merely a situation to live in but also to live with , requiring constant negotiation with housing difficulties across spatial, temporal and relational dimensions. Building on years of ethnographic fieldwork, I utilise the literature of materiality to uncover the invisible labour of tenants living in subdi…
From liberal to state feminism? Exploring gender politics amid political transition in Hong Kong
This article explores the gender outcomes of political transitions by investigating gender politics in Hong Kong from the colonial era to the post-2020 period. By drawing on official documents, media reports, and empirical studies, this article illuminates the mutually constitutive nature of political processes and gender politics. It analyzes the complementary, but conflicting, relationship between feminist movements and pro-democracy activism d…
Abortion caringscapes
The gender backlash intensified by reactionary politics and the heteronormative pronatalism resulting from fertility decline have posed increased challenges to reproductive justice, particularly threatening abortion rights. This study draws on the care literature and years of fieldwork on abortion in China and introduces the concept of ‘abortion caringscapes’ – the multidimensional terrain of care activities across time and space, in which women …
Politics (3 works) · Sociology (3 works) · Gender Studies (2 works) · Gender, Feminism, and Media (2 works) · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism (2 works) · Law (2 works) · Medicine (2 works) · Political science (2 works) · Social science (2 works) · Urban Planning and Governance (2 works)