Jules Zhao LIU

I am an interdisciplinary researcher, specialized in both anthropology and sociology. Graduated from the University of Hong Kong, my research focuses on the interplays between statebuilding and popular religion. My papers are published in American Journal of Cultural Sociology, Anthropological Theory, the Journal of Asian Studies, etc. Recently, I engage in studies on popular religion in the Greater Bay Area. I explore how religious circulation in the Greater Bay Area strengthens social connection and cultural networks in different cities in the past and present. Also, I investigate how popular religion strengthens the connections between the Greater Bay Area and the Chinese diasporas in Southeast Asia. I argue that popular religion is an important means of soft power, maintaining cultural identification, enhancing regionalization, and reinforcing emotional ties between people from the same “roots.” Based on ethnography, historical documentation, and oral history interviews, my research seeks to display the soft power of popular religion through vivid descriptions of interesting cases.