Dr Miriam Driessen

miriam driessen photo
Departmental Lecturer in Social Anthropology

 

Bio

Miriam Driessen is a social anthropologist. She studied at the University of Amsterdam, the Berlin Institute of Technology, and the University of Oxford, and previously taught at the Oxford School of Global and Area Studies. 

 

Research Interests

Miriam’s research explores Chinese-led development from below, looking at issues such as migration, labour, gender and sexuality, language, and, more recently, law. She is the author of Tales of Hope, Tastes of Bitterness: Chinese Road Builders in Ethiopia and the essay The Restless Earth: Rural China in Transition.

 

Miriam is an editorial board member of Global China Pulse, an open-access journal that seeks to bridge the gap between the scholarly community, civil society, and the general public.

 

Contact

Email: miriam.driessen@anthro.ox.ac.uk  

X (Twitter): @DriessenMiriam

 

global china pulse

 

Driessen, Miriam. 2022. ‘Trials of trustworthiness between Ethiopian lawyers and Chinese clients.’ Political and Legal Anthropology Review, 45(2): 274–289.

Driessen, Miriam, and Willy Sier. 2021. ‘Rescuing masculinity: Giving gender in the wake of China’s marriage squeeze.’ Modern China, 47(3): 266–289.

Driessen, Miriam. 2020. ‘Pidgin play: Linguistic subversion on Chinese-run construction sites in Ethiopia.’ African Affairs 119/476: 432–451.

Driessen, Miriam. 2019. ‘Laughing about corruption in Ethiopian-Chinese encounters.’ American Anthropologist 121(4): 911–922.

Driessen, Miriam. 2019. Tales of hope, tastes of bitterness: Chinese road builders in Ethiopia. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. (Francis L. K. Hsu Book Prize Honourable Mention, Society for East Asian Anthropology, American Anthropological Association)

Driessen, Miriam. 2018. ‘Rural voids.’ Public Culture 30(1): 61–84.

Driessen, Miriam. 2016. ‘Pushed to Africa: Emigration and social change in China.’ Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 42(15): 2491–2507.

Driessen, Miriam. 2015. ‘Migrating for the bank: Housing and Chinese labour migration to Ethiopia.’ The China Quarterly 221: 143–160.