Ziqi Xie

Matriculated September 2017

Research Interests

Medical Anthropology; Psychological Anthropology; STS Studies; Reproduction; Assisted Reproductive Technologies; Reproductive and Population Governance; Biopolitics; Kinship; Family; Women’s Health; Morality and Ethics; China; Asia

About

Ziqi Xie’s research interests include topics of reproduction, biomedical technologies, medical knowledge-making, kin-making, family, gender, population and reproductive governance, pronatalism, and neoliberalism. Based on 23 cumulative months of fieldwork conducted between 2017 and 2023 in IVF clinics, fertility laboratories, and with families seeking reproductive assistance in Guangdong Province, China, Ziqi is writing her dissertation titled “Making an ‘Ideal Family’ Through Assisted Reproduction: Family, Reproductive Governance, and Biomedicine in Pro-natalist China.” Ziqi’s work explores how state-level demographic concerns regarding population size and age structure have been reframed, reenacted, and remade as moral questions by both families and IVF professionals. Specifically, Ziqi highlights the ways that women of “advanced maternal ages” and assisted reproductive specialists in a major Chinese city negotiate state pronatalism, the resurgence of traditional family values, the ethics of assisted reproductive technologies, and the legacy of socialist discourses around gender equality.

Before joining Boston University, Ziqi graduated from Sun Yat-sen University in 2017 with a major in anthropology. During her undergraduate years, Ziqi was a research assistant in a cancer center, an obstetric department, and an IVF center for two years. 

Awards & Grants

• David M. Schneider Award, American Anthropological Association. (2024).
• Cora Du Bois Dissertation Completion Fellowship, Harvard University. (2024-2025).
• Humane Studies Fellowship, The Institute for Humane Studies. (2024-2025).
• Women’s Council Scholarship. (2024).
• Summer Travel Award, Center for Innovation in Social Science. (2024).
• The Graduate Student Organization Travel Grant. (2024).
• Department of Anthropology Contemporary Chinese Cultures Fund, Summer Research Grant. (2022).
• Long-term (GRAF) Graduate Research Abroad Fellowship. (Fall 2019, Spring 2022).
• Department of Anthropology Summer Research Grant. (2021).
• Society for Psychological Anthropology/Robert Lemelson Student Fellowship, American Anthropological Association, (2020).
• Department of Anthropology Summer Research Grant. (2020).
• Department of Anthropology Summer Research Grant. (2019).
• Short-term (GRAF) Graduate Research Abroad Fellowship. (Summer 2019).
• Department of Anthropology Summer Research Grant. (2018).
• Boston University Dean’s Fellowship (Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Spring 2021, Fall 2022).

Publications

• forthcoming