(Re)Constructing Chinese womanhood through UK higher education: A transnational, intersectional, and arts-based study

Dai, Qiao (2025) (Re)Constructing Chinese womanhood through UK higher education: A transnational, intersectional, and arts-based study. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow.

Abstract

This research aims to explore Chinese women international students’ (re)construction of Chinese womanhood through UK Higher Education (UKHE). I ask two questions: 1) In what ways did participants construct Chinese womanhood through broader UKHE settings and wider transnational intersectional contexts? 2) What is the role of UKHE in participants’ construction of Chinese womanhood?

I situate these questions within the existing literature on Chinese womanhood and Chinese (women) students in international higher education. I construct a transnational intersectionality framework and adopt a life history and arts-based research approach. 56 participants participated in collage-facilitated, culturally responsive focus groups. Subsequently, 30 of them participated in timeline-facilitated life history interviews. Dialectics, intersectionality, and temporality guided my two-round data analysis.

Participants often perceived themselves as self-contradictory and discussed various contradictions in their construction of Chinese womanhood. I argue that their perception of contradictions between modern and traditional Chinese womanhood, incorporating six specific dilemmas, was shaped by the intersectionality of state neoliberalism and state heteropatriarchy through dichotomisation. Through UKHE, many participants became more aware of and resistant to the homogenisation, belittlement, restraints, and contradiction of the prescribed Chinese womanhood. They also developed towards diverse, autonomous, feminist, and integrated selfhood. Therefore, their sense of contradictions stemmed from: 1) the dichotomisation of state neoliberalism and state heteropatriarchy; 2) the conflict between their perceptions of dichotomies and their intersectional lived experiences; and 3) the tension between various restraints and their developing autonomy through UKHE.

I further conceptualise three ways in which interview participants’ autonomy can be understood in relation to heteropatriarchy and neoliberalism: neoliberal autonomy, feminist autonomy, and uncertain autonomy. These concepts seek not only to understand participants’ (re)construction of modern versus traditional womanhood but also to (re)imagine the power dynamics in their past-present-future (re)construction, where UKHE played a significant yet complex role. Specifically, some participants developed neoliberal autonomy through experiencing and internalising transnational neoliberalism and injustices, alongside their subjectification of familism-patriotism. However, many participants developed their feminist autonomy through various channels: formal education in social justice and gender; autonomous, alternative, and cooperative learning; diverse and alternative womanhood, temporalities, and politics; and transnational media.

My research grounds participants’ transformations within their social conditions to purposefully imagine alternative praxis of Chinese womanhood that transcend transnational axes of domination. For participants, this meant forging alternative ways of being beyond the dichotomy of traditional versus modern womanhood, as well as creating alternative ways of relating beyond the framework of collectives versus individuals and competition. Additionally, my research valorises the impact of UKHE on participants’ autonomy and its feminist implications, while also problematising neoliberal and (neo)colonial practices.

• Item Type: Thesis (PhD)
• Qualification Level: Doctoral
• Subjects: L Education > LC Special aspects of education
• Colleges/Schools: College of Social Sciences > School of Education
• Supervisor's Name: Fagan, Dr. Catherine, Bradley, Dr. Lisa and Mulvey, Dr. Benjamin
• Date of Award: 2025
• Depositing User: Theses Team
• Unique ID: glathesis:2025-84860
• Copyright: Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
• Date Deposited: 05 Feb 2025 11:22
• Last Modified: 05 Feb 2025 16:05
• Thesis DOI: 10.5525/gla.thesis.84860
• URI: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/84860