Chinese name: 曹流 /Tsao-Lil/

I am an urban cultural geographer with interests in the everyday life of cities, urban consumption, and aesthetics. I work at the intersection of urban studies and cultural geography to understand the urban. I am 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 my work is to use empirical research from China to develop conversations with existing urban scholarship that is grounded from the West. My research explores how culture can work as the critical lens not only to understand the urban space but also how it can be used for new knowledge production. Through in-depth, empirical research, I aim to contribute new perspectives to urban studies, broadening conversations that have historically been grounded in the West. 

My research sits at the intersection of urban consumption, aesthetics, and critical geographies, with my work frequently featuring in leading journals for urban and geographical research, such as Environment and Planning A & C, Urban Studies, and the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. My early research, including foundational papers on participatory governance and the post-revanchist city (2022), focused on neighbourhood mobilisation, informal public participation, and the governmentality of urban regeneration in Nanjing.

Wanghong consumption and urban changes

Building on these themes, my broader critical geography research has engaged deeply with class and authenticity, critically reinterpreting the 'new middle class' in China through the lens of retail transformations (Urban Studies, 2023). This work advocates for more nuanced socio-cultural approaches to how we understand contemporary urban change, linking everyday consumption to wider shifts in urban governance and spatial production.

More recently, I have been focused on consolidating research around digital platforms and urban spatial restructuring. I am currently developing a new program of work concerning the entanglement of influencers, social media, and gentrification, examining how the boundaries between online representation and onsite material realities are being continuously remade in the rapidly evolving urban landscape.

My work on consumption, digitality, and urban aesthetics—especially as online phenomena meet physical urban spaces—has recently culminated in a linked series of investigations into China's wanghong (internet celebrity) economy. This includes my analysis of the wanghong economy as a new engine driving urban development (2024), and more recent papers exploring gentrification aesthetics and prosumption in Urban Geography (2025), alongside the politics of new urban aestheticisation in IJURR (2025). My IJURR paper is also included as the featured paper of China cities https://www.ijurr.org/virtual-issues/china-cities/

Affects and the sensory urban

Parallel to these socio-cultural investigations, my current research is deeply engaged with the 'sensory urban.' By centering affective experiences, this work seeks an ontological understanding of the city, exploring how urban environments are fundamentally felt, lived, and embodied, moving beyond strictly physical or representational frameworks.

If you are unable to access any of my publications, please email me directly.