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Susanne Strauß will be her local host at the department and Ariane Bertogg will be her host at the Zukunftskolleg.

Haoyus research is on rural-urban migration in China, the strategies to access the housing market and the consequences that this type of migration bears for family ties. 

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ZUKOnnect Fellow Haoyu Zhao

Affiliated with the Department of History and Sociology

Project: Housing strategies, living arrangements, and intra-family politics of migrant families in a small Chinese city

Within families, housing serves as both a familial asset and a residential space for family members, and therefore is closely associated with intra-family politics. Through a multi-sited ethnography, this research project interrogates how migrant families’ housing strategies and settlement patterns are shaped by and shaping their intra-family politics. This inquiry is addressed through two dimensions explored in two papers.

The first paper examines how migrant families have developed various living arrangements across the rural-urban divide, and how intergenerational relations have played out in this process. It especially pays attention to the agency of the older generation in navigating migration and managing intergenerational tensions.

The second paper focuses on the agency of women in providing housing for their elderly parents within the persistent dominance of patriarchal norms. Traditionally, the patriarchal kinship practice dictates that the son (and the son’s wife) cares for the elderly parents. Thus, the aspirations of migrant women directly challenge this tradition. This paper demonstrates that the realization of female migrants’ aspirations hinges on the conditions and strategies for avoiding conflicts with their husbands. The intricate and contradictory aspect is that circumventing the husband's authority often depends on adhering to patriarchal norms.

ZUKOnnect Fellow from 07/2024 until 06/2025 (onsite in fall 2024)