Professor Rachel Murphy
Rachel Murphy is Professor of Chinese Development and Society and a Fellow of St Antony’s College. She is course director for the MSc in Contemporary Chinese Studies and the MPhil in Modern Chinese Studies. Rachel teaches on ‘the Study of Contemporary China’ and ‘Research Methods’ and convenes an option course in the Sociology of China, which is offered in the MSc in Contemporary Chinese Studies and MSc in Sociology.
She studied for her doctorate in the Department of Sociology at Cambridge, supported by a Trinity College external studentship and a Senior Rouse Ball scholarship. She then held a British Academy Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Development Studies at Cambridge. Later, she taught in East Asian Studies and Social Policy at the University of Bristol before moving to Oxford in 2007. She has also held adjunct and visiting positions at Hong Kong University and the University of Western Australia.
Rachel’s research sits at the intersections of area and development studies, sociology, anthropological demography, and social policy. She examines social changes occurring in China because of industrialization, urbanization, demographic transition, migration, marketization, education and state policies. She is committed to on-the-ground fieldwork to examine social change. Over the past twenty years she has conducted in-depth longitudinal ethnography, interviews, documentary research and surveys in villages, townships, counties and cities, and has spent more than six years in China.
Her latest book, The Children of China’s Great Migration (Cambridge University Press, 2020), supported by a British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship, draws on longitudinal fieldwork with children, their caregivers and migrant parents from two urbanizing landlocked provinces in eastern China. The book provides a rare exploration of migration, urbanization, education, and families’ gender and intergenerational relations through the eyes of children. Her previous book, How Migrant Labor is Changing Rural China (Cambridge University Press, 2002, Chinese edition published in 2009), offers one of the earliest analyses of return migration and returnee entrepreneurship in China’s rural hinterlands and towns.
She has significant institution-building experience, having previously served as Head of the Oxford School of Global and Area Studies (OSGA) for nearly 4 years from 2015-2018 and as Director of the Asian Studies Centre at St Antony’s College, 2009-2012.
She has served two terms on the executive committee of the China Quarterly editorial board. She is an editor of the ‘Human Geography and Social Sustainability’ section of Sustainability and is on the editorial boards of Modern China and its sister journal Rural China. Additionally, she co-edits the Routledge book series Comparative Development and Policy in Asia. Rachel is President of the British Association for Chinese Studies (http://bacsuk.org.uk).
She is developing new research projects to explore various social changes associated with China’s ongoing urbanization and welcomes inquiries from potential doctoral students wanting to work on these themes in relation to mainland China or Taiwan.
- Sociology
- Labour migration and urbanisation; education, culture and social mobility; anthropological demography, esp. gender imbalances; rural transformation; social marginalisation and social policy
Email: rachel.murphy@area.ox.ac.uk
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, 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, R. Tao and X. Lu (2011) ‘Son Preference in Rural China’, Population and Development Review, 37 (4) (Dec): 665-690.
- R. Murphy (2011) ‘Civil Society and Media in China’, in Charting China’s Future: Domestic & International Challenges, ed. by David Shamburg, Routledge, pp.57-66.
- R. Murphy (2010) 'The Narrowing Digital Divide in China', in One Country, Two Societies: Rural-Urban Inequality in Contemporary China, ed. by M.K. Whyte, Harvard University Press, pp.168-187.
- M.X. Liu, J. Wang, R. Tao & R. Murphy (2009) 'The Political Economy of Earmarked Transfers in a State-Designated Poor County in Western China', China Quarterly, (Dec): 973-994.
- M.X. Liu, R. Murphy, R. Tao and X.H. An (2009) ‘Education Management and Performance after Rural Education Finance Reform: Evidence from Western China’, International Journal of Educational Development, 29 (5) (September): 463-473.
- R. Murphy (2007) ‘Paying for Education in Rural China’, in Paying for Progress in China: Public Finance, Human Welfare and Changing Patterns of Inequality, ed. by V. Shue and C. Wong, Routledge, pp.69-95.
- R. Murphy (2007) ‘The Paradox of China’s Official State Media Reinforcing Poor Governance: Case Studies of a Party Newspaper and an Anti-Corruption Film,’ Critical Asian Studies, (Mar) 39 (1): 63-88. Reprinted in Murphy and Fong, eds. (2008).
- Liu L.Q. & R. Murphy (2006) ‘Lineage Identities, Land Conflicts and Rural Migration in Late Socialist China’, Journal of Peasant Studies, 33 (4) (Oct): 612-645.
- R. Murphy and Ran Tao (2006) ‘No Wage and No Land: New Forms of Unemployment in Rural China.’ In Unemployment in China, Routledge, pp. 126-149.
- R. Murphy (2004) ‘Turning Chinese Peasants into Modern Citizens: ‘Population Quality’, Demographic Transition, and Primary Schools’, China Quarterly, 177, (Mar):1-20 --- Winner of the Gordon White Prize.
- R. Murphy (2004) ‘The Impact of Labour Migration on the Well-Being and Agency of Rural Chinese Women’, in On the Move: Women and Rural-Urban Migration in Contemporary China, Columbia University Press, pp.227-262.
- R. Murphy (2003) ‘Fertility and Distorted Sex Ratios in Rural China: Culture, State and Policy,’ Population and Development Review, 29 (4) (Dec): 595-626.
Edited Books and Edited Special Journal Issues:
- D. Johnson and R. Murphy (eds.) (2009) Special issue on ‘Education and Development in China’, International Journal of Educational Development, 29 (5).
- R. Murphy (ed.) (2008) Labour Migration and Social Development in Contemporary China, London: Routledge.
- R Murphy and V.L. Fong (eds.) (2008) Media, Identity and Struggle in 21st Century China, London: Routledge, first published as special sections in Critical Asian Studies, 39 (1&2)
- V. L. Fong and R. Murphy (eds.) (2006) Chinese Citizenship: Views from the Margins, London: Routledge.
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.