Jiali is a PhD candidate in the Sociology Department at the University of Cambridge. She holds a BA with First Class Honours in Media and Communications from Monash University and an MPhil in the Sociology of Media and Culture from the University of Cambridge.
Her research interests include digital culture, feminist studies, influencer industries, and the platform economy.
Her PhD project focuses on women influencers on Instagram and Xiaohongshu, examining the hopes, frustrations, strategies, and forms of resistance that emerge within specific social, cultural, political, and technological contexts. She articulates three levels of gendered precariousness—motherhood, work, and body politics—and examines how women influencers challenge neoliberal gendered structures through their work, while also consolidating the very neoliberal regimes they are struggling against. This dynamic creates a unique dual positionality, where influencers exercise agency by being both 'in' and 'against' these systems. In addition to her work on digital labour, Jiali has also explored gendered migration patterns in the Asia-Pacific region.
