Shui-Yin Sharon Yam
Biographic Data
| ID | 901654 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Shui-Yin Sharon Yam |
| GIVEN NAMES | Shui-Yin Sharon |
| FAMILY NAME | Yam |
| SIGNATURE | YAM S S |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Kentucky |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 17 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 5 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 17 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2011 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Forever Hong Kong
ix years after the spectacular 'Be Water' rebellion that rippled across national borders, Forever Hong Kong (Harvard University Press, 2025) asks: What historical conditions and precedents precipitated the citywide revolt in 2019?How can we understand Hongkongers' political resistance as acts of decolonial defiance?Weaving cogent historical and political-economy analyses of Hong Kong's colonial history with rich ethnographic data from 2019, C.K. …
Digital Masquerade
China (NYU Press, 2023) interrogates the intersections across digital media of feminist rights activism, queer culture, and neoliberalism in an illiberal context.Drawing on a wide range of artefactsinterviews with feminist advocates and queer media practitioners, participant-observations at queer community events, and cultural analysis of social media content, queer films, and dating apps-Tan develops the useful concept of 'digital masquerade'.'D…
Reproductive Realities in Modern China
Towards a transnational analysis of racialization, affect, and neoliberal capitalism
This review of Lisa Flores' Deportable and Disposable connects racialization of Mexican migrants in the US with a similar process in Hong Kong towards mainland Chinese immigrants, and Southeast Asian domestic workers. The essay argues for increased rhetorical attunement towards the transnational interconnectedness of racial hierarchy and neoliberal capitalism
Being water
During the 2019 Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill (Anti-ELAB) protest, Hong Kong protesters invented, adapted, and deployed a variety of decentralized grassroots tactics of resistance. While understudied, the proliferation of protest zines during the Anti-ELAB movement contributed to an affective community among movement supporters and protesters, allowing them to engage in self- and communal care as they resisted state violence. We argue that …
Dobbs , Reproductive Justice, and the Promise of Decolonial and Black Trans Feminisms
Cultivating Transnational Coalitional Subjectivity
In this article, I perform what Wendy Hesford calls “intercontextual reading” to trace how the coalitional potential between the Hong Kong anti-authoritarian movement and the U.S. Black Lives Matter protests is eclipsed by appropriation, disinformation, and misalignment, fueled specifically by Beijing and apologists for authoritarian non-Western regimes, that pitch grassroots movements, activists, and potential allies against each other. I then e…
Transtopia in the Sinophone Pacific
Dreadful Desires
The Uses of Love in
Ideas Are Bullet-Proof
In late 2020, while at the HKUST, Lee drew the ire of pro-Beijing media outlets for participating in an online panel with dissidents
Against Gender Essentialism
This article explores how reproductive justice (RJ) doulas support trans and nonbinary birthing people, while advancing more inclusive practices within the birth world. We begin by tracing historical changes in mainstream birth and pregnancy care to highlight how biological naturalism and woman-centered discourse became ingrained. Then, we analyze primary data, such as participant observations at doula trainings, interviews with RJ doulas, and tr…
Coalition Moments in Hong Kong's Anti-Extradition Law Movement
While Hong Kong's Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill (ELAB) Movement in 2019 did not lead to systemic policy changes, the protests provided coalitional moments for mainstream Hongkongers to connect with the city's marginalised South Asian community. This essay first contextualises the positionality and history of marginalisation of South Asians in Hong Kong. It then examines moments of rupture during the Anti-ELAB Movement that fostered solidari…
Fear in the Classroom
Inconvenient Strangers
Birth Images on Instagram
This article examines Katie Vigos’s petition and Instagram account @empoweredbirthproject that protests the social media platform’s censorship against images of physiologic births. In analyzing specific images, captions, and responses from the audience, I argue that Vigos’s project functions as an alternative form of birth educational material that retrains the audience’s gaze and feelings toward birth and the laboring body. I demonstrate that @e…
Citizenship discourse in Hong Kong
This article traces how citizenship in Hong Kong is constructed via familial tropes that privilege sameness and a politics of identification; this rhetorical representation, I argue, not only perpetuates a jus sanguinis model of citizenship that privileges ethnic blood ties, but also allows the state and the dominant citizenry to justify neoliberal and racist practices that exclude brown bodies. By analyzing the citizenship claims made by the mar…
Books
Birth Images on Instagram
This article examines Katie Vigos’s petition and Instagram account @empoweredbirthproject that protests the social media platform’s censorship against images of physiologic births. In analyzing specific images, captions, and responses from the audience, I argue that Vigos’s project functions as an alternative form of birth educational material that retrains the audience’s gaze and feelings toward birth and the laboring body. I demonstrate that @e…
Against Gender Essentialism
This article explores how reproductive justice (RJ) doulas support trans and nonbinary birthing people, while advancing more inclusive practices within the birth world. We begin by tracing historical changes in mainstream birth and pregnancy care to highlight how biological naturalism and woman-centered discourse became ingrained. Then, we analyze primary data, such as participant observations at doula trainings, interviews with RJ doulas, and tr…
Books
Citizenship discourse in Hong Kong
This article traces how citizenship in Hong Kong is constructed via familial tropes that privilege sameness and a politics of identification; this rhetorical representation, I argue, not only perpetuates a jus sanguinis model of citizenship that privileges ethnic blood ties, but also allows the state and the dominant citizenry to justify neoliberal and racist practices that exclude brown bodies. By analyzing the citizenship claims made by the mar…
Inconvenient Strangers
Birth Images on Instagram
This article examines Katie Vigos’s petition and Instagram account @empoweredbirthproject that protests the social media platform’s censorship against images of physiologic births. In analyzing specific images, captions, and responses from the audience, I argue that Vigos’s project functions as an alternative form of birth educational material that retrains the audience’s gaze and feelings toward birth and the laboring body. I demonstrate that @e…
Fear in the Classroom
Cultivating Transnational Coalitional Subjectivity
In this article, I perform what Wendy Hesford calls “intercontextual reading” to trace how the coalitional potential between the Hong Kong anti-authoritarian movement and the U.S. Black Lives Matter protests is eclipsed by appropriation, disinformation, and misalignment, fueled specifically by Beijing and apologists for authoritarian non-Western regimes, that pitch grassroots movements, activists, and potential allies against each other. I then e…
Transtopia in the Sinophone Pacific
Dreadful Desires
The Uses of Love in
Ideas Are Bullet-Proof
In late 2020, while at the HKUST, Lee drew the ire of pro-Beijing media outlets for participating in an online panel with dissidents
Against Gender Essentialism
This article explores how reproductive justice (RJ) doulas support trans and nonbinary birthing people, while advancing more inclusive practices within the birth world. We begin by tracing historical changes in mainstream birth and pregnancy care to highlight how biological naturalism and woman-centered discourse became ingrained. Then, we analyze primary data, such as participant observations at doula trainings, interviews with RJ doulas, and tr…
Coalition Moments in Hong Kong's Anti-Extradition Law Movement
While Hong Kong's Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill (ELAB) Movement in 2019 did not lead to systemic policy changes, the protests provided coalitional moments for mainstream Hongkongers to connect with the city's marginalised South Asian community. This essay first contextualises the positionality and history of marginalisation of South Asians in Hong Kong. It then examines moments of rupture during the Anti-ELAB Movement that fostered solidari…
Digital Masquerade
China (NYU Press, 2023) interrogates the intersections across digital media of feminist rights activism, queer culture, and neoliberalism in an illiberal context.Drawing on a wide range of artefactsinterviews with feminist advocates and queer media practitioners, participant-observations at queer community events, and cultural analysis of social media content, queer films, and dating apps-Tan develops the useful concept of 'digital masquerade'.'D…
Reproductive Realities in Modern China
Towards a transnational analysis of racialization, affect, and neoliberal capitalism
This review of Lisa Flores' Deportable and Disposable connects racialization of Mexican migrants in the US with a similar process in Hong Kong towards mainland Chinese immigrants, and Southeast Asian domestic workers. The essay argues for increased rhetorical attunement towards the transnational interconnectedness of racial hierarchy and neoliberal capitalism
Being water
During the 2019 Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill (Anti-ELAB) protest, Hong Kong protesters invented, adapted, and deployed a variety of decentralized grassroots tactics of resistance. While understudied, the proliferation of protest zines during the Anti-ELAB movement contributed to an affective community among movement supporters and protesters, allowing them to engage in self- and communal care as they resisted state violence. We argue that …
Dobbs , Reproductive Justice, and the Promise of Decolonial and Black Trans Feminisms
Forever Hong Kong
ix years after the spectacular 'Be Water' rebellion that rippled across national borders, Forever Hong Kong (Harvard University Press, 2025) asks: What historical conditions and precedents precipitated the citywide revolt in 2019?How can we understand Hongkongers' political resistance as acts of decolonial defiance?Weaving cogent historical and political-economy analyses of Hong Kong's colonial history with rich ethnographic data from 2019, C.K. …
Sociology (11 works) · Political science (8 works) · Conversation (6 works) · Gender Studies (6 works) · Hong Kong and Taiwan Politics (6 works) · Law (6 works) · Philosophy (6 works) · Communication (5 works) · Politics (5 works) · Psychology (5 works)