Projects per year
Personal profile
Biography
Education Activities
Tom Cliff is a Lecturer in Anthropology and the political economy of China at the School of Culture, History, and Language, in the College of Asia and the Pacific.
He convenes the Bachelor of Philosophy (Humanities and Social Sciences), or PhB (HaSS) — the ANU's elite and demanding undergraduate research program in the HaSS disciplines.
He teaches ASIA2099/6099 “Social Power in China” and a PhB-specific Research Methods course.
He is the Deputy Director (Education) of the School of Culture, History, and Language in the College of Asia and the Pacific.
Research Activities
Tom's DECRA Project concerns industrial organization, charity innovation, and popular mobilization in rural China.
In 2018, Tom's first book _Oil and Water: Being Han in Xinjiang_ (Chicago University Press, 2016) won the Association for Asian Studies' prestigious E Gene Smith prize for Best Book on Inner Asia.
Tom's current book project is a longitudinal study on categorisation and marginalisation through the Socialist and Post-Socialist eras in the PRC.
Please see Google Scholar for recent publications.
Research interests
China's Motor: Entrepreneurs and private enterprise. Family and lineage.
Institutions: of production, market, and social order.
Charity: State structures and mobilisation. Non-state welfare and public goods.
Experiences: of frontier settlement; of the Socialist State-Owned Enterprise.
Current student projects
Haiyue XU: Daughters of the Transition
Dingwen QIU: Connection to China among Chinese overseas international students
Past student projects
Alex Pan: Competing Media Perspectives on China's Economic Situation, 1945-1949 (PhB; Supervisor)
Alana Tolman: Social and Political Aspects of Bruneian Tertiary Education Policy (Hons; Supervisor)
Yuan Xiaoxi: The Influence of English on Modern Chinese through the 20th century (MAPS; Supervisor)
Lucy Zheng: Power of Language: Political Slogans, Cyber Censorship and Increasing Nationalism in 2010s China (MAPS; Supervisor)
Li Linshan: Lineage Groups and Modernity in Contemporary Southeast China (MAPS; Supervisor)
Ingrid Mao: Contemporary Banality in China (PhB; Supervisor)
Xu Yiwen: Collective Parental Anxiety about After-Class Education in China (MA Advanced; Supervisor)
Stefanie Kam: Securitisation, Desecuritisation and Counter-Securitisation (PhD; Panel member)
Qualifications
Researcher's projects
Family, Enterprise, and Civic Duty in Contemporary China
Business-Local State Relationships in China (ARC DP140101289, with Andrew Kipnis)
Oil and Water: Being Han in Xinjiang
Expertise Areas
- Government and Politics of Asia and the Pacific
- Social Change
- Studies of Asian Society
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Network (past 5 years)
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Welfare Entrepreneurs and Paradoxes of Social Control in Rural China
Australian Research Council (ARC)
15/04/18 → 31/12/23
Project: Research
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Business-Local State Relationships in China
Kipnis, A. & Cliff, T.
Australian Research Council (ARC)
5/02/14 → 31/12/17
Project: Research
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Oil and Water
Cliff, T., 2022, Xinjiang Year Zero. Darren Byler, Ivan Franceschini and Nicholas Loubere (ed.). 1st ed. Canberra: Australian National University, p. 77-94Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter
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The Chinese Economy From the Underside: Funny Money and Institutional Transformation in the Xi Jinping Era
Cliff, T., 2022, In: American Behavioral Scientist. 66, 2, p. 143-159Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
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Emergent Political Norms in Local State-Private Enterprise Relations during China's Big Push for Poverty Reduction
Fang, L., Li, B. & Cliff, T., 2021, In: American Behavioral Scientist. 66, 2, p. 213-231Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
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Emergent Political Norms in Local State-Private Enterprise Relations during China's Big Push for Poverty Reduction
Fang, L., Li, B. & Cliff, T., 2021, In: American Behavioral Scientist. 66, 2, p. 213-231Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
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How Elite Networks Shape Private Enterprises’ Social Welfare Provision in Rural China
Cliff, T., 2021, In: The China Journal. 86, July 2021, p. OnlineResearch output: Contribution to journal › Article