Professor Rachel Murphy

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Professor of Chinese Development and Society; Research Director (OSGA)

Rachel Murphy is a fellow of St Antony’s College. She obtained her doctorate in Sociology at the University of Cambridge in 1999 funded by a scholarship from Trinity College. She was previously a British Academy Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in Development Studies at Cambridge.  She is course director for the MSc in Contemporary Chinese Studies, and former Head of OSGA (2014-2018). She teaches the option course ‘The Sociology of China’, and on the core courses ‘Research Methods for Area Studies’ and ‘The Study of Contemporary China.’

 

Rachel's long-term research has explored social and cultural change occurring in China because of urbanization, migration, education, demographic transition, state policies, and media transformations. Over twenty years she has conducted ethnography, interviews, documentary research and surveys in villages, townships and cities, and has spent more than six years in China.

 

Her most recent monograph, The Children of China’s Great Migration (Cambridge University Press, 2020; forthcoming in paperback May 2022), supported by a British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship, draws on the stories obtained through longitudinal fieldwork with children, their caregivers and migrant parents who hailed from two landlocked provinces in eastern China. The book provides a rare exploration of migration, im/mobility, urbanization, education, and families’ gender and intergenerational relations through the eyes of rural children whose parents have migrated for work without them. Reviews appear in The China Quarterly and Journal of Ethnic and Racial Studies.

 

In December 2021 (together with Genia Kostka at Freie Universität, Berlin) Rachel was awarded a small grant from the Oxford-Berlin Research Partnership for collaborative activities on ‘Privacy and Ethical Online Research into Private Lives in China’.

 

Rachel serves as President of the British Association for Chinese Studies (http://bacsuk.org.uk) (September 2019 -) and is on the editorial board of Modern China. She also previously served two terms on the executive editorial committee of the flagship journal, The China Quarterly.

 

She is happy to supervise dissertation topics on social and cultural change in mainland China and Taiwan.

Research Interests
Research Disciplines:
  • Language-based Area Studies (Chinese); Sociology; Communication/Cultural Studies
Research Keywords:
  • Labour migration and urbanisation; education, culture and social mobility; anthropological demography, esp. gender imbalances; rural transformation; media
Research Cluster:

 

Contact Information

Email: rachel.murphy@area.ox.ac.uk

Publications and Research Funding

Selected Publications:

 

Monographs:

  • R. Murphy (2020) The Children of China’s Great Migration, Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org/9781108834858
  • R. Murphy (2002) How Migrant Labor is Changing Rural China, Cambridge University Press [Chinese edition: 农民工改变中国农村Zhejiang People’s Publishing House, 2009].   

 

Journal Articles and Book Chapters:

R. Murphy (2022) ‘What Does ‘Left Behind’ Mean to Children Living in Migratory Regions in Rural China?’ Geoforum, online first. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0016718522000203?dgcid=author

R. Murphy (2022) ‘Education and Repertoires of Care in Migrant Families in Rural China,’ Comparative Education Review 66 (1), online first.

R. Murphy (2021) ‘The Gendered Reflections of Stayers in China’s Migrant Sending Villages,’ Journal of Rural Studies, 88 (Dec):317-325.

R. Murphy (2020) The Children of China’s Great Migration, Cambridge University Press

R. Murphy, M. Zhou, and R. Tao (2016) ‘Parents’ Migration and Children’s Subjective Wellbeing and Health: Evidence from Rural China.’ Population, Space and Place, 22 (8): 766-780.

R. Murphy (2014) ‘Sex Ratio Imbalances and China’s Care for Girls Programme: A Case Study of a Social Problem’, China Quarterly, 219 (Sep): 781-807.

M.H. Zhou, R. Murphy and R. Tao (2014) 'The Effects of Parents' Migration on the Education of Children Left Behind in Rural China', Population and Development Review 40 (2) (Jun): 273-292.

R. Murphy (2014) ‘School and Study in the Lives of Children in Migrant Families: A View from Rural Jiangxi, China’, Development and Change 45 (1): 29-51.

R. Murphy, Ran Tao and Xi Lu (2011) ‘Son Preference in Rural China: Patrilineal Families and Socioeconomic Change’ Population and Development Review 37 (4): 665-690.

R. Murphy (2010) 'The Narrowing Digital Divide in China', in One Country, Two Societies: Rural-Urban Inequality in China, ed. by M.K. Whyte, 168-187, Harvard University Press.

R. Murphy and V. Fong (2008) (eds.) Media, Identity and Struggle in 21st Century China, Routledge [Published as two issues of Critical Asian Studies co-ed. by Murphy and Fong]

V. Fong and R. Murphy (eds.) (2006) Chinese Citizenship: Views from the Margins, Routledge.

R. Murphy (2002) How Migrant Labor is Changing Rural China, Cambridge University Press [Chinese edition published in 2009 by Zhejiang People’s Publisher].

 

Recent Presentations:

  • 13th April 2016: Gender and the Wellbeing of Children in Rural China Whose Parents Have Migrated without Them, UWA Economics Department Seminar Series.
  • ‘What Does ‘Left Behind’ Mean in Rural China? Children’s Perspectives’, Conference on Migration, Social Reproduction and Social Protection, University of East Anglia at London, 2nd -3rd April 2012.
  • ‘School in the Lives of Children in Migrant Families: A View from Rural China’, Population Dynamics in South and East Asia, British Academy and Royal Society, 29th-30th March 2012.
  • ‘Sex Ratio Imbalances and China’s Care for Girls Programme’, Seminar Series, Sociology Department, University of Cambridge, 1st March 2012.

 

Research Funding:

  • British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship – The Children of China’s Great Migration and Urbanisation, 2013 - 2014.
  • British Academy Career Development Grant – Parental Labour Migration and the Wellbeing of Children Left Behind in Rural China, awarded in 2007, postponed till 2009, completed 2012.
  • OUP John Fell Fund Grant – Parental Labour Migration and the Wellbeing of Children Left Behind in Rural China, supplementary support for data gathering, awarded 2009, completed 2012.
  • BICC Small Grant - Patrilineal Families and Sex Ratio Imbalances in Rural China, awarded 2007, completed 2011.
  • Nuffield Foundation Small Grant – Sources of Political Will for Social Development (case study of policy measures addressing China’s sex ratio imbalance), awarded 2006, completed in 2012 with supplementary fieldwork supported by BICC at Oxford.
  • International Organisation for Migration – Labour Migration and Social Development in China, to edit a policy-relevant volume, awarded 2006, completed 2008.
  • Oxford Contemporary China Studies Programme Small Grant – Information Communication Technologies in Rural China, awarded 2004, completed 2006.
  • British Academy Joint Activities Grant – Patrilineal Families and Land Conflict in Late Socialist China, awarded 2002, completed 2004.
  • British Academy International Networks Grant (with Vanessa L. Fong) -To co-arrange two international workshops on Chinese Citizenship (one on the citizenship of marginalised people and one on media and citizenship) and to co-edit the proceedings, 2003-2005, completed 2006.
  • Cambridge Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities, Support for conference on Chinese Citizenship, 2003.
  • British Council, Support for conference on Chinese Citizenship, 2003.
  • Simon Population Trust, Population Quality in Rural China, awarded 2000, completed 2003.