Claudia Huang

Education

• Ph.D. (2019) University of California, Los Angeles, Anthropology
• M.A. (2012) Boston University, International Relations and Religion
• B.A. (2008) Boston University, Art History and Cultural Anthropology

Research Interests

I am a sociocultural anthropologist who focuses on personal identity and meaning-making among elders. I am particularly interested in how cultural norms surrounding the aging process can be altered or upended by social change. Though I conduct my primary ethnographic research in China’s Sichuan province, the theoretical implications and practical applications of my work are not limited to a single geographical area.

My current book project, titled Dancing for Their Lives: Self-Cultivation, Sociality, and Growing Old in Urban China, is a case study on a strikingly popular “dancing grannies” phenomenon that has emerged in Chinese cities in recent years. Drawing from over 18 months of ethnographic research conducted in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province with the generous support of the Fulbright-Hays and Confucius China Programs, I combine both macro-and micro-levels of inquiry and analysis to contextualize the phenomenon—in which millions of retired women come together in groups to dance and to socialize—into the China’s changing family structures, diminishing status of elders, and privatization of public services. Like so many others around the globe, these retirees are growing old in a world that barely resembles the one in which they were born; my work not only highlights the challenges that elders face when adapting to new realities but also investigates how elders use the new opportunities that emerge from shifting social mores to their advantage.

Teaching

• HDEV 310: Qualitative Methods in Human Development
• HDEV 357: Approaches to Adulthood Through Aging
• HDEV 403: Acquisition of Culture: Socialization in Cross-Cultural Perspectives