PhD Field Work: San Francisco Bay Area

I have been in the San Francisco Bay Area since 4 June 2011 and will be here until 19 July 2011.  I am continuing to conduct field work for my PhD project on Cantonese-speaking evangelicals, their conceptions of civil society, and their engagement in society and politics.

I am interested in the following things (although this list is by no means exhaustive):

• Chinese Christian engagement in local neighborhood politics and social services, including advocacy for the marginalized, entrepreneurial work, and inter-Christian cooperation
• Engagement with the perceived secularism of San Francisco
• The issue of same-sex marriage and other family values politics (including anti-gambling activism)
• Demographic shifts within Chinese Christian communities
• Interactions between Chinese mainline Protestant groups and Chinese evangelical groups, including the similarities and differences of their engagement with society and politics
• Chinatown Christian political and social activism
• Activism around the 1989 Tiananmen incident
• Comparisons among the City, the East Bay, and the South Bay
• Engagement with American politics, especially self-identifications with Democrat and Republican
• Engagement with the People’s Republic of China