Liu Cao 曹流 is an urban cultural geographer with interests in the everyday life of cities, urban consumption, and cities and social changes. She works at the intersection of urban geography and cultural studies to understand the urban. She is particularly interested in urban consumption in China by looking at how new urban spaces are structured and transformed through peoples consumption practices, and the major theme running through her work is to use empirical research from China to develop conversations with existing urban scholarship that is grounded from the West.

Office hour: Every Monday 3-4 pm or by email appointment

Current research:

I am now focusing on a new urban phenomenon in China about 'wanghong consumption place'. My research mostly explores how wanghong consumption initiated the urban changes to contribute to the contemporary urban scholarship. By calling it wanghong, I refer to a Chinese phenomenon about things/people/place/goods that is popular on Chinese social media platforms such as Xiaohongshu. This is new research project has just had its first research output out on EPA (please refer to my research output).

Working papers:

• Cao, L. Influencers and social media: gentrification aesthetics and prosumption through China's wanghong economy. Urban Geography.
• Cao, L. Wanghong consumption and its cultural politics in (re)making the place through new urban aestheticisation. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research.

Any my publications that you want to read but have no access to it, please feel free to email me and I can email you the full text version. 

Assistant Professor, Xian Jiaotong-Liverpool University, 2022-Current

Postdoctoral Researcher, Sun Yat-sen University, 2020-2022

• Geographies of Consumption
• Urban Consumption
• Cities and Social Changes
• Urban China

2022, Overseas Postdoctoral Talents Fund, Guangdong Province, China

2018, Student Travel Award, Urban Geography Research Group, American Association of Geographers