Associate Professor
Credentials
PhD (Sociology), London South Bank University
MA (Gender & Ethnic Studies), Greenwich University
BA (Thai & Development Studies), SOAS, London University
Research Keywords
Sociology & Cultural Studies; Urban Justice; Educational Inequalities; Transnational Race, Gender & Sexuality Studies; Feminist/Queer/Trans Of Colour Theories & Activisms; Biopolitics & Necropolitics; Violence & Anti-Violence; Queer Space; Criminalization & Pathologization; Affect; Temporality.

Contact Information
4700 Keele Street
Toronto, ON M3J 1P3
416 736 2100
https://www.facebook.com/marvellousgrounds/?ref=br_rs
Research Interests
Jin locates their research and teaching in a tradition of activist scholarship. In this tradition, we attempt to put our energies and resources in service of the communities we are allied to. We seek to divest from the competitive, hierarchical, individualistic and exploitative values of the neoliberal University, while also sharing tools to survive and build community in it.
Jin’s research deals with landscapes that are shaped by racial and colonial capitalism. There, celebration and incorporation exist alongside pathologization and criminalization. For example, in their first two books, The Biopolitics of Mixing and Queer Lovers and Hateful Others, Jin explored how certain mixed-race and LGBT subjects became desirable in a context of war on terror, neoliberal multiculturalism and the global city in London and Berlin.
In contrast, Jin’s research highlights the real transformations that are also happening, and that are not easily assimilated. Their current project explores the alternative strategies of safety that are being innovated during COVID-19. It examines the practices of safety and survivance that have been forged by queer and trans Black, Indigenous and people of colour (QTBIPOC) and other marginalized communities, that are both disproportionately impacted by the virus and less able to adhere to official corona rules and norms such as #StayHome. Using interviews and focus groups, the study asks what members of marginalized communities are doing to keep themselves safe, and what potential these practices bear for sparking wider changes, at a moment of crisis where many are willing to explore new models of safety, transformation, and relating to other humans and the more-than-human world.
Much of Jin’s research is collaborative. Their last two projects, Marvellous Grounds and Taking Space, Making Space, on trans and queer of colour maps and archives in Toronto, were conducted in collaboration with several current and former York and FES students, including Alvis Choi, Mengzhu Fu, Ghaida Moussa, Rio Rodriguez and Syrus Marcus Ware. The blog that several students have contributed to can give you a sense of this: marvellousgrounds.com. In a similar spirit of collaboration, Jin co-organized the 2015 Critical Ethnic Studies conference as part of a collective of York faculty and students and community members.
Jin’s research has received several awards, including the York University Research Leader Award, the Early Researcher Award, a SSHRC IG, a SSHRC IDG, and a University of California Humanities Research Institute co-coordinatorship and fellowship.
Research Output
Recognition & Awards
- Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Insight Grant
- Early Researcher Award (ERA) by the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation
- SSHRC Insight Development Grant
- York University Research Leader Award by York Vice-President Research and Innovation
- University of California Humanities Research Institute (UCHRI) Co-coordinator of Residential Research Group on Queer Color Formations and Translocal Spaces in Europe (with Paola Bacchetta and Fatima El Tayeb)Fellow at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, Helsinki University, Finland
- Fellow in Transnational Gender Studies, London School of Economics and Political Science, Gender Institute
- Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Postdoctoral Fellowship, Goldsmiths College, Department of Media and Communications
- German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) Research Grant for Junior Scholarship
- Dean's Community Engagement Award and Dean's Teaching Award, Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University
- Academic Innovation Fund (AIF), York Unviversity
- Ontario Legislative Assembly’s Speaker’s Book Award short-list
- 45th Toronto Heritage Awards nominee for the Queering Urban Justice anthology (co-edited with Ghaida Moussa and Syrus Marcus Ware, with Gabriela Rodriguez)