Research Affiliate
Tracy Ying Zhang is an Assistant Professor (CLTA) in the Department of Communication & Media Studies at York University. Before joining York, she was a Mitacs Elevate Postdoctoral Researcher at Concordia University, where she conducted a research project on gendered and racial barriers in film production education. Previously, she also held postdoctoral fellowships at Université de Montréal and Queen’s University. Zhang’s research explores the intersections of race, gender, labor migration, body politics, and settler colonial capitalism in intersectional feminist and transnational frameworks. Her first project is an ethnographic and historical study of artisanal labor in Tibetan capital city Lhasa. Her second major project uses “acrobatics” as an entry point to investigate the body as both a subject of labor and a cultural medium in the processes of nation-state building, international diplomacy, and cultural trade. This research has generated multiple presentations, two book chapters, and articles in academic journals, such as The Journal of Early Popular Visual Culture, The Journal of International Labor and Working-Class History, The International Journal of Cultural Policy, and Feminist Media Studies. Alongside academic work, Zhang directed and co-produced several films, including The Flip Side: A Global Circus Story (co-producer). This documentary was screened in seven film festivals, four international conferences, and three college festivals. It won the best short documentary at “Disorient Asian American Film Festival of Oregon”.