In the words of Dr. Wang's co-chair, Professor Ramamurthy:
"Hearty congratulations to Stephanie Yingyi for successfully defending her dissertation yesterday!
"Cruel Activism: Precarity, Labor, and Affect of Chinese Feminist and LGBT Rights NGOs" is a brilliant meditation on Chinese feminist and LGBT NGO activists and activism. Yingyi makes several important interventions: she shifts the conceptualization of activists to activist-workers, thereby raising questions of labor. Why do they continue in the face of increasingly exhausting work conditions and pressures from the state? She turns to the "political economy of affect" to explain how passion and voluntarism drive their dogged commitment and, paradoxically, are also the grounds for the devaluation of their labors, especially under neoliberal regimes of professionalization of the NGO sector. To transnational feminism, Yingyi offers insights into the racialization of NGO activist workers in their circuits of work and the agonistic relationship of Chinese feminists with global donors and discourses. China Studies is enriched by Yingyi's discussion of state-civil society relations from the standpoint of LGBT and feminist NGOs based on her research in three organizations and her own amazing activism and scholarship. Beyond academia, Yingyi's bold foray into the inner workings of NGOs and her commitment to transforming the work conditions and lives of NGO activist workers so that they flourish will be widely embraced.
Congratulations, Dr. Wang!
We're so proud of who you are, what you stand for, and that you pulled this off in the midst of the pandemic."