Jin obtained double Bachelor’s degree of Art in English literature and Journalism from the Southwest University in China (2011.9-2015.6). She then graduated with a Master of Art with Distinction in Global Media Communication from the University of Melbourne (2015.7-2017.7). Jin has been conducting her doctoral research since July 2018 under the supervision of Prof. Sabina Mihelj and Dr. Alena Pfoser.
Jin’s PhD research is concerned with media representation and remembrance of Xinjiang’s Han Chinese, with particular focus on how the arrival of the Han Chinese migrants to Xinjiang on the 1950s to 1960s is represented and remembered in public, national-wide mass media, and in Han communities’ home media—which respectively in the form of television serial dramas and family photography. The research examines the similarities and differences in how this historical migration is remembered in these two forms of mediation and aims to find out whether television serials and family photographs embody two different ‘layers’ of memory on Han Chinese migrants— official memory and vernacular memory. Furthermore, this research also attempts to understand the reception of these representations by Han migrants themselves and the role these materialized memorial media and objects play in processes of collective remembering, and specifically in processes of remembering within families.
Research interests:
Media representation, Audience reception, Media memory studies, Migration studies
Conference Presentations:
Dai, J. (2021) Between Official and Vernacular Memory: Mediated Representation and Remembrance of Han Migration to Xinjiang in Museum Photographs and Family-owned Albums. In 2021 Mnemonic Summer School, held by the Mnemonic Network of Memory Studies. Aarhus University, Denmark.
Dai, J. (2021) Between Public and Vernacular Memory: Remembering Han Migration to Xinjiang via Family Photographs. during Panel E5: (De)NATIONALIZING MEMORIES: INTERROGATING CHINESENESS FROM THE “PERIPHERIES’. In Memory Studies Association (MSA) Fifth Annual Conference, Warsaw, Poland.
Dai, J. (2018) A cross-generational analysis of media and identity among Han migrants in Xinjiang since the 1950s. In Nations and Nationalisms: Theories, Practices, and Methods. International Postgraduate Conference held by the Loughborough University Nationalism Network (LUNN), in collaboration with the Association for the Study of Ethnicity and Nationalism (ASEN). Loughborough University, UK.
- He, T. and Dai, J. (2017) The Marriage and integration of Yelu Chucai Family. Journal of Xinjiang University.