My research interests encompass urban consumption, everyday practices and popular culture. Her recent research projects are committed to investigating digitally mediated urbanism in contemporary China. These projects pay attention to how the dynamic time-space of the everyday is situated in the contemporary commercialised world and how more-than-human practices in the mundane impact social and environmental sustainability in digital cities. I have published over 60 academic papers in English/Chinese peer-reviewed journals or edited books, as well as three monographs.
Education
Department of Geography Royal Holloway, University of London, UK
PhD, Cultural Geography 2012-2016
Department of Tourism Management, South China Normal University, China
BA, International Hospitality Management 2008-2012
Work experiences
Professor (2024-) School of Geography and Planning, Sun Yat-sen University
Associate Professor (2017- 2024) School of Geography and Planning, Sun Yat-sen University
Research Associate (2015-2017) Department of Geography, The University of Sheffield
Teaching
2nd year undergraduate programme: Social and Cultural Geography
3rd year undergraduate programme: Globalisation and World Development
Master programme: Social and Cultural Geography, Cultural Geography Thoughts
PhD programme: Academic Writing
Research projects
PI: Science and Technology Planning Project of Guangzhou on Social Media and Urban Transformations (2025-2026).
PI: NSFC (Natural Science Foundation of China) funded project on Encountering ‘Smart’ Technologies in Ordinary City Life (2024-2027).
PI: NSFC (Natural Science Foundation of China) funded project on Consumer Cultures, Digital Platforms and Everyday Practices (2021-2023).
PI: Science and Technology Planning Project of Guangzhou on Digital Economics and Consumer Cultures in Guangzhou (2021-2023).
PI: Sun Yat-sen University funded project on Takeaway Food Consumption and Geographies of Responsibility (2019-2022).
Co-PI: NSSFC (National Social Science Foundation of China) funded project on Rural Construction and Activity (2021-2023)
Serve as an advisory board member for the ERC project (2022-2027) A Middle Way? Probing Sufficiency through Meat and Milk in China (PI: Marius Korsnes).
Work as a research associate for the AHRC INTERSECTION project (2015-2017). The project explores intergenerational justice in relation to consumption and sustainability (PI: Gill Valentine).
PhD project ‘Food, Home and Family-Making in contemporary Guangzhou, China’ (2012- 2015). This project is part of ‘The Construction and Re-construction of Place in the Urban Food Spaces by (Cross-)cultural Identity: Case Studies in Guangzhou’ (2013-2015), which is funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China.
Selected Publications
Journal Papers
Chen, J., Liu, C., Bian, F. (2025). Imaginative gender roles of care in the smart home: an analysis of ‘carescapes’ in Chinese commercial narratives. Gender, Place and Culture. https://doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2024.2319053
Wu X., & Liu, C. (2025). Digitalising rural lifestyles: online platforms and everyday life in Chinese villages. Geoforum. 159, 104206.
Liu, C. (2025). Encountering not-so-smart technologies in urban spaces: QR codes, screens and the idiocy of smart living. Urban Geography. https://doi.org/10.1080/02723638.2025.2455055
Liu, C., Hua, F., Huang, Y., Huang, J., Chen, J., Liang, S., & Liu, Q. (2024). Is It Still a Pleasure to Be a Flâneur/Flâneuse? Adopting a Walking-Based Pedagogy to Explore the Digitalized Urban Spaces. Journal of Geography, 123(4), 112-122.
Liu, C. (2024). Follow the digital: Methodological thoughts on doing everyday geographies in a digital world. Digital Geography and Society. 6:100079.
Liu, C. (2023). More-than-human practices of making and unmaking the smart home: A socioemotional investigation. Emotion, Space and Society. 49: 100982.
Liu, C., Chen, J. & Xue, D. (2023). Daily mobilities with smartphone apps and their failures: A study in urban Guangzhou. Cities. 143: 104574.
Liu, C. (2023). The digitalisation of consumption and its geographies. Geography Compass. 17(7): e12716.
Liu, C. & Chen, J. (2023). Mapping the anxiety of digitally mediated mobilities in the mundane. Mobilities, 18(1): 86-102.
Liu, C. (2023). Living with touchscreens: haptic geographies of home in the digital context. Annals of American Association of Geographers. 113(1): 261-273.
Jayne, M., Liu, C., & Valentine, G. (2022). “鱼龙混杂 yúlóng-hùnzá”-fish and dragons (bad and good people) mixing together: young people, urban life and alcohol, drinking, drunkenness in China. Urban Geography, 43 (10): 1580-1609.
Liu, C. & Chen, J. (2021). Consuming takeaway food: convenience, waste and Chinese young people’s urban lifestyle. Journal of Consumer Culture, 21(4): 848-868.
Liu, C. (2021). Rethinking the timescape of home: Domestic practices in time and space. Progress in Human Geography, 45 (2): 343-361.
Liu, C., Yang, R., & Xue, D. (2020). Chinese Muslims’ daily food practices and their geographies of encounter in urban Guangzhou. Social & Cultural Geography. 21(9), 1287-1306.
Diprose, K., Liu, C. Valentine, G., Vanderbeck, R. M. McQuaid, K. (2019). Caring for the future: climate change and intergenerational responsibility in China and the UK. Geoforum, 105: 158-167.
Liu, C., Valentine, G., Vanderbeck, R. M., McQuaid, K., & Diprose, K. (2019). Placing ‘sustainability’ in context: narratives of sustainable consumption in Nanjing, China. Social & Cultural Geography, 20(9): 1307-1324.
Liu, C., Valentine, G., Vanderbeck, R. M., McQuaid, K., & Diprose, K. (2019). Rural–urban inequality and the practice of promoting sustainability in contemporary China. GeoJournal, 84(5): 1187-1198.
McQuaid, K., Vanderbeck, R.M., Valentine, G., Liu, C. and Diprose, K. (2019) ‘An elephant cannot fail to carry its own ivory’: Transgenerational ambivalence, infrastructure and sibling support practices in urban Uganda. Emotion, Space and Society, 32: 100537, 1-8.
Liu, C., Chen, L., Vanderbeck, R. M., Valentine, G., McQuaid, K., & Diprose, K. (2018). A Chinese route to sustainability: post-socialist transitions and the construction of ecological civilisation. Sustainable Development, 26(6): 741-748.
Liu, C. (2017). Food practices, gendered intimacy and family life in contemporary Guangzhou. Gender, Place & Culture, 24(1), 97-107.
Liu C., Cai X., Zhu H. (2015) Eating out ethically: An analysis of the influence of ethical food consumption in a vegetarian restaurant in Guangzhou, China. Geographical Review, 105(4), 551-565.
Liu C., An N. & Zhu H. (2015) A geopolitical analysis of popular songs in the CCTV Spring Festival Gala, 1983-2013. Geopolitics, 20(3): 606-625.
Liu C. (2014) Noise in Guangzhou: The cultural politics of underground popular music in contemporary Guangzhou. Area, 46(3): 228-234.
刘晨, 陈嘉妍. 平台城市主义视角下数字化日常出行的社会文化地理分析：广州案例[J]. 地理科学,2023,43(7):1-11.
梁颂岷,刘晨,欧阳军.Web2.0环境中的地理想象建构及其机制研究——以网络漫画“波兰球”为例[J].世界地理研究,2022,31(05):1070-1082.
黄耿志, 吴康, 戴俊骋, 刘晨, 姚常成, 唐婧娴, 张旭, 胡晓辉. 奶茶经济的地理学批判与研究议题 [J]. 经济地理, 2021, 41(12): 1-11.
刘晨, 蔡晓梅. “噪”起来：广州音乐现场的文化地理研究[J]. 地理科学, 2016，36(1): 1-7.
刘晨,朱竑,安宁. 文学旅游地的社会文化建构：以凤凰古城为例[J].旅游学刊, 2014,29(7):68-76.
刘晨,蔡晓梅,曾国军.西方厨房研究及其对中国文化地理家庭空间研究之启示[J].热带地理,2014,34(4):445-453.
蔡晓梅,刘晨,曾国军.社交媒体对广州饮食文化空间的建构与重塑[J].人文地理, 2013,134(6):1-8.
蔡晓梅,朱竑,刘晨.情境主题餐厅员工地方感特征及其形成原因——以广州味道云南食府为例[J].地理学报, 2012,67(2):239-252.
蔡晓梅,朱竑,刘晨.顾客对情境主题餐厅表演的感知研究——以广州味道云南食府为例[J].人文地理, 2012,123(1):119-126.
Books
Liu, C. (2024). Curating digital lives: consumer cultures, digital platforms and everyday practices. Lanham: Lexington Books.
Liu, C. (2021). Food Practices and Family Lives in Urban China. London: Routledge.
Diprose, K., Valentine, G., Vanderbeck, R.M., Liu, C., McQuiad, K. (2019) Climate Change, Consumption and Intergenerational Justice: Lived Experiences from China, Uganda and the UK. Bristol: Bristol University Press.
薛德升，刘晨，瑞塔·施耐德-斯利华. (2021). 地理学国际实习教程：瑞士-上莱茵河谷地理综合实习. 广州：中山大学出版社.
Book Chapters
Liu, C. (2025). Ecological Civilization and Chinese Human Geography. In Handbook of Ecological Civilization: Concept, Philosophy, and Pedagogy (pp. 1-15). Singapore: Springer Nature Singapore.
Liu, C. (2025) ‘Geographies of Consumption’. In Warf, B. (ed.) Encyclopedia of Human Geography. Cham: Springer.
Liu, C. (forthcoming) ‘Living with Ordinary Technologies’. In Dombroski, K., Goodwin, M., Qian, J. and Williams, A. (eds.) Introducing Human Geography. London: Routledge.
Korsnes, M. & Liu, C. (2021) ‘Exploring sufficiency in China: Chinese meat consumption between comfort and constraint’. In Hansen, A and Syse, K., L. (eds.) Changing Meat Cultures: Local Cuisines, Global Capitalism and the Consumption of Animals. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.
Diprose, K., Liu, C., Vanderbeck, R.M., Valentine, G., Chen, L., McQuaid, K., and Zhang, M. (2018) ‘Contrasting theories of intergenerational justice: Just savings or capabilities?’. In Punch, S. and Vanderbeck, R.M. (eds.) Family, Intergenerationality and Peer Group Relations. Volume 5 of the series Major Reference Work on Geographies of Children and Young People (series editor: Tracey Skelton). New York: Springer. pp. 351-369.
Liu C. (2018) Food and home-based consumption. In: Jayne M. (ed.) Chinese Urbanism: Critical Everyday Perspectives. London: Routledge. 121-136.
