Jinjin (Kimie) ZHANG is a sociocultural anthropologist focusing on how people use digital technology for social experiments to mitigate collective anxiety, build spiritual sanctuaries, and envision hopeful futures. She is now based at Harvard-Yenching Institute as a visiting fellow (2025-2026).

 

Theoretically, her research synthesises digital anthropology, science and technology studies, critical data studies, as well as mobility and border studies.

 

Empirically, she explores how digital infrastructure projects mirror the desires for fostering social, economic, and cultural connections and expansion amid the rise of digital capitalism in East Asia, particularly Japan and China.

 

Her dissertation “Animating Relationality: Digital Life-making in Depopulating Japan”, critically examines technological appropriation, emergent networks, structures of feeling, and often-invisible labor behind the national agenda of digital revitalization. 

 

Her current research directions encompass:

 

(1) Sociotechnical imaginaries and citizen movements for and against digital transformation, including Web3, metaverse, blockchain, and AI

 

(2) Social media activism, data justice, and alternative public spheres in both liberal democratic and authoritarian contexts

 

(3) Neoliberal entrepreneurialism, affective economy, new forms of work, play, and lifestyle in the digital age (e.g., digital nomad, workation)

 

(4) Travelling imaginaries of homeland/hometown in modern and postwar Japan and other East Asian societies

 

Beyond academia, Jinjin enjoys yoga, meditation, walking, hiking, and deep conversations with friends. She is engaged in public scholarship and dialogues to promote a better understanding of East Asia and anthropological knowledge, primarily among younger Chinese generations on platforms like Xiaohongshu (Rednote), WeChat Public Account, and podcasts.

 

Jinjin welcomes collaboration with scholars, activists, practitioners, and students to promote what she calls “everyday social change” that might trigger ripple effects.