Jenny Chio

Associate Professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures and Anthropology

Research & Practice Areas

Media ethnography; Race, ethnicity, and nationalism; Anthropology of modernity; Collective memory; Cultural heritage; Tourism and migration; Documentary practice; Contemporary China

Education

  • B.A. Cultural Anthropology, Brown University
  • M.A. Visual Anthropology, Goldsmiths College, University of London
  • Ph.D. Socio-Cultural Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley
    • Postdoctoral Research Fellow, China Research Centre, University of Technology, Sydney, 2009-2012
  • Tenure Track Appointments

    • Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Emory University, 2012 – 2018
  • Book

    • Chio, J. (2014). A Landscape of Travel: The Work of Tourism in Rural Ethnic China. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press.  Open Access 
    • (2012). Mapping Media in China: Region, Province, Locality. London: Routledge.

    Book Chapter

    • Chio, J. (2020). Theorizing In/Of Ethnographic Film. Handbook of Ethnographic Film and Video London: Routledge.  Online access 
    • Chio, J. (2017). Video Documentary and Rural Public Culture in Ethnic China. Asian Video Cultures pp. 35-53. Durham: Duke University Press.
    • Chio, J. (2017). Rural Films in an Urban Festival: Community Films and Cultural Translation at the Yunnan Multi Culture Visual Festival. Chinese Film Festivals: Sites of Translation pp. 279-299. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
    • Chio, J. (2013). Good Fences Make Good Neighbors: Claiming Heritage in the Longji Terraced Fields Scenic Area. Cultural Heritage Politics in China pp. 143-159. New York: Springer.
    • Chio, J. (2012). Village videos and the visual mainstream in rural, ethnic Guizhou. Mapping Media in China: Region, Province, Locality pp. 79-93. London: Routledge.
    • Chio, J. (2011). Know Yourself: Making the Visual Work in Tourism Research. Fieldwork in Tourism: Methods, Issues, Reflections pp. 209-219. London: Routledge.
    • Chio, J. (2009). The Internal Expansion of China: Tourism and the Production of Distance. Asia on Tour: Exploring the Rise of Asian Tourism pp. 207-220. New York: Routledge.

    Essay

    • Chio, J. (2020). A Very American ‘Solution’ in a Chinese Owned Factory: Commentary on “American Factory” (2019, dir. Julia Reichart and Steven Bognar). Docalogue.  Online access 

    Encyclopedia Article

    • Chio, J. (2021). Race and Cultural Heritage. Oxford Bibliographies in Anthropology.
    • Chio, J. (2021). Visual Anthropology. Cambridge Encyclopedia of Anthropology.  Open Access 

    Journal Article

    • Chio, J., Neves, J. (2023). A Conversation about Futurity, Critique, and Political Imagination. Canberra, ACT: Made in China Journal.  Read Online (link) 
    • Chio, J., Johnson, J. H. (2022). “Can you hear me now?”: A Conversation on Equity, Empathy, and (Playful) Solidarity.. 1 pp. 102-106. Minneapolis: Verge: Studies in Global Asia. Vol. 8 (1),  Issue contents 
    • Chio, J., Gill, T., Gonzalez, V. V., Harp, S. L., McDonald, K., Rosenbaum, A. T., Thomas, L. L. (2020). Discussion: Tourism and Race. Journal of Tourism History.  Online 
    • Chio, J. (2019). The Miao Festival Crowd: Mediations of Presence, Body Politics, and an Ethnic Public in ‘Minority’ China. 4 pp. 536-558.Current Anthropology. Vol. 60 (4),
    • Takaragawa, S., Smith, T. L., Hennessy, K., Alvarez Astacio, P., Chio, J., Nye, C., Shankar, S. (2019). Bad Habitus: Anthropology in the Age of the Multimodal. 2 pp. 517-524.American Anthropologist. Vol. 121 (2),
    • Chio, J. (2018). Afterword: Filmmaking as Critical Participant Observation. 3 pp. 297-300.International Journal of Tourism Anthropology, special issue, “Film and Contemporary Representations of the Exotic Other: Gazing through Filmic Eyes”. Vol. 6 (3),
    • Chio, J. (2018). From the stadium to the screen: bullfights and their mediated afterlife in Southwest China. 4 pp. 254-275.Asian Anthropology. Vol. 17 (4),
    • Chio, J. (2017). Rendering Rural Modernity: Spectacle and Power in a Chinese Ethnic Tourism Village. 4 pp. 418-439.Critique of Anthropology. Vol. 37 (4),
    • Chio, J. (2017). Introduction: Rural as Space and Sociality. 4 pp. 361-363.Critique of Anthropology. Vol. 37 (4),
    • Chio, J. (2014). Fieldwork, Film, and the Tourist Gaze: Making Nong Jia Le Peasant Family Happiness. 1 pp. 62-72.Visual Anthropology Review. Vol. 30 (1),
    • Robinson, L., Chio, J. (2013). Making Space for Chinese Indpendent Documentary: The Case of Yunfest 2011. 1 pp. 21-40.Journal of Chinese Cinemas. Vol. 7 (1),
    • Chio, J. (2011). Leave the fields without leaving the countryside: Modernity and mobility in rural, ethnic China. 6 pp. 551-575.Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power. Vol. 18 (6),
    • Ethnographic Film, Nong Jia Le Peasant Family Happiness (2013) |
      Distributed by Berkeley Media |
      70 minutes, digital video, color |
      http://www.berkeleymedia.com/product/peasant_family_happiness/ , 2013
    • Humboldt Research Fellowship for Experienced Researchers, 2021-2024
    • Visiting Fellow, Center for Experimental Ethnography, University of Pennslyvania, Spring 2021
    • Morphomata Fellowship for Former Grantees, University of Cologne, Germany, 2020
    • Workshop Grant on Portraits in the 21st Century, Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research (co-organizer), 2018-2019
    • Fejos Postdoctoral Fellowship for Ethnographic Film, Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, 2017-2018
    • Heritales Film Festival Honorable Mention (Medium-Long Film) for Nong JIa Le Peasant Family Happiness, Fall 2017
    • Morphomata Research Fellow, University of Cologne, Germany, 2016-2017
    • David Plath Media Award for Nong Jia Le Peasant Family Happiness, 2013-2014
  • Editorships and Editorial Boards

    • Co-Editor, Visual Anthropology Review”, 2015 – 2018