Dr Ruard Absaroka

My doctoral dissertation focuses on urban musical geographies and networks in Shanghai. My current research interests also include the impact of digital technologies on informal, independent musicking, ethnographic methods and multi-sited fieldwork, ethnographic film-making, the music business, sound studies, Jazz, club cultures, and critical realism. I have conducted secondary research while working as a project assistant on the AHRC Research Network ‘Sounding Islam in China’. This has involved workshops in Shanghai and Urumqi and fieldwork trips: to Linxia and Lanzhou in Gansu Province, and in Xinjiang, China. My area studies interests include China and East Asia, Central Asia, Turkey, Poland, Greece, and the musics of the British Isles. I lead the SOAS Chinese Music Ensemble and co-founded the London Xiqu Chinese Opera Network. I am an active musician based in London.