Prof. CAO Nanlai (曹南來)

Nanlai Cao is a sociocultural anthropologist concerned with the intersection of religion, culture, and political economy. Much of his work explores the everyday practice of religion in China and the Chinese diaspora with a focus on the relationship of religious life to local and national institutions of governance and state-managed economic globalization. His research is interdisciplinary and has involved extended fieldwork conducted in the US, China, France, Italy, UAE and Zimbabwe. It has been published in Global Networks, Asia Pacific Viewpoint, The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology, Sociology of Religion: A Quarterly Review, and The China Journal, among other outlets.

Using religion as a lens onto broader process of sociocultural change and continuity, his first book, Constructing China’s Jerusalem: Christians, Power, and Place in Contemporary Wenzhou (Stanford, 2010; Chinese edition, HKU Press, 2013), examines ethnographically how mass participation in Christianity in coastal southeast China articulates and sustains notions of place, class, gender and citizenship in the reform era. He is also author of a Chinese language book Wenzhou Christians and the Grassroots Globalization of China, published by the Chinese University Press. Collaborating with researchers from Asia and the Pacific, Europe and the Middle East, he coedited Reconstituting Boundaries and Connectivity (Special issue of The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology, 2013), Religion and Mobility in a Globalizing Asia: New Ethnographic Explorations (Routledge, 2013), Chinese Religions in China and Italy (special issue of Religioni e Società 2018), Chinese Religions Going Global (Brill, 2020), and edited Chinese Religions on the Edge: Shifting Religion-State Dynamics (special issue of The China Review 2018).

Nanlai was an elected member of the executive council of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion (2017-2019). Prior to City U., he worked at the University of Hong Kong and Renmin University of China.

Currently, his research interests focus on Chinese diasporic communities and economic zones along the Belt and Road. 

Selected publications

Cao, N. 2025. Sacralising Chinese Entrepreneurship: Christianity and Chinese Entrepreneurial Migration in the Making of a Patriarchal Diaspora. Asia Pacific Viewpoint 66 (1): 54-63.

Cao, N. 2023. “Merchants and Missionaries: Chinese Evangelical Networks and the Transnational Resacralization of European Urban Spaces” Global Networks: A Journal of Transnational Affairs 23 (3): 541-556.

Cao, N. 2021.  “China’s Intensified Private Commercial Engagement in Africa”, AsiaGlobal Online Journal, November.

Cao, N. 2019. "A Sinicized World Religion?: Chinese Christianity at the Contemporary Moment of Globalization", Religions 10(8): 459

Cao, N. 2018  “Chinese Religions on the Edge: Shifting Religion-State Dynamics," The China Review 18(4): 1-10.

Cao, N. 2017. Wenzhou Christians and the Grassroots Globalization of China (in Chinese). Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press

Cao, N. 2017. “Spatial Modernity, Party Building, and Local Governance: Putting the Christian Cross-removal Campaign in Context,” The China Review 17(1): 29-52.

Cao, N. 2013. “Elite Christianity and Spiritual Nationalism” Chinese Sociological Review (formerly Chinese Sociology and Anthropology).

Cao, N. 2013.  “Renegotiating Locality and Morality in a Chinese Religious Diaspora: Wenzhou Christian Merchants in Paris, France” The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 14 (1): 85-101.

Cao, N. 2013. “Gender, Modernity, and Pentecostal Christianity in China” in Global Pentecostalism in the 21^st Century, Robert Hefner, ed. Indiana University Press, pp. 149-175.

Cao, N. 2010. Subjectivity and Locality in Chinese Religious Practices (in Chinese). Journal of Peking University (Humanities and social sciences) 6: 20-27.

Cao, N. 2010. Constructing China’s Jerusalem: Christians, Power, and Place in Contemporary Wenzhou. Stanford: Stanford University Press 

Cao, N. 2009. Raising the Quality of Belief: Suzhi and the Production of an Elite Protestantism. China Perspectives/Perspectives chinoises (in English and French) 4: 54-65.

Cao, N. 2008.  Boss Christians: The Business of Religion in the “Wenzhou Model” of Christian Revival. The China Journal 59: 61-87. (German version published in China heute 161: 33-46)

Cao, N. 2007.  Christian Entrepreneurs and the Post-Mao State: An Ethnographic Account of Church-State Relations in China’s Economic Transition. Sociology of Religion 68 (1): 45-66.         

Cao, N. 2005.  The Church as a Surrogate Family for Working Class Immigrant Chinese Youth: An Ethnography of Segmented Assimilation. Sociology of Religion 66 (2): 183-200.

  Editorial board: Sociology of Religion: A Quarterly Review (Oxford U P), 2015-

  Editorial board: Religioni e Società (Italian journal in the sociology of religion), Pisa, Roma, 2020-

  Editorial board: New Directions in the Anthropology of Christianity Series, Bloomsbury Academic Press, 2021-

  Managing editor, Renmin University Religion Digest, 2014-2023 (as editorial board member since 2014)

  Editorial board: Study of Christianity, Religious Culture Press (Beijing), 2019-

  Editorial board: Chinese Anthropological Review, Zhejiang University, 2021-

  Editorial board: Anthropology of Religion, Social Sciences Academic Press (China), 2023- 

  Editorial board:  Frontiers of Sino-Christian Studies Series, Institute of Sino-Christian Studies (Hong Kong), 2024-

  Editorial board: Logos and Pneuma - Chinese Journal of Theology, 2024-

2023  Best Article Award, International Society for the Sociology of Religion/Société Internationale de Sociologie des Religions (for “Merchants and Missionaries", Global Networks 23: 541-556)

2017 Chercheur Résident (Research Fellow in Residence), Institut d’Etudes Avancées de Nantes, France

2017  Residential fellowship, International Center for the Sociology of Religion (Rome), Italy

2016  Jack Shand Research Award, Society for the Scientific Study of Religion

2009  John Legge Prize for the Best Thesis in Asian Studies, Asian Studies Association of Australia              

2007  Sir Raymond Firth Award (for the most promising PhD thesis), ANU

2007  Joseph Fichter Research Award, Association for the Sociology of Religion

2005  Constant H. Jacquet Research Award, Religious Research Association

2003 & 2006  Robert J. McNamara Student Paper Award, Association for the Sociology of Religion

Intangible Heritages and Indigenous Cultures

Contemporary China from an Anthropological Perspective

Chinese Civilization: History and Philosophy

Selected Readings in Sinology

Capstone Project in Chinese Language & Literature

Capstone Project in Chinese History and Cultural Heritage

PI:  State-private Partnership in China's Economic Engagement with Africa

City University of Hong Kong start-up project

Grant date: 2/05/24

Grant: Internal › Award

Co-PI: Educational Choices, Career Aspirations, and Identity Construction among Second-Generation Chinese Expatriates in the UAE

American University of Sharjah: HK$686,310.00

Collaborators: 

American University of Sharjah, KEDGE Business School in France

Grant date: 20/02/23

PI: The Ethnography of Religion in Contemporary China: Theory and Methods

National Social Science Fund (NSSF-China): RMB200,000.00

Grant date: 30/09/22

Grant: PRC › Award

Co-PI: Buddhism and End-of-Life Care

Renmin University of China: HK$750,000.00

Grant date: 1/09/21

Grant: PRC › Award

PI: Contemporary Chinese Religious Ethnography: Theory, Methods and Practice

Renmin University of China: HK$150,000.00

Grant date: 1/02/20

Grant: Internal › Award

PI: Popular Buddhism and Christianity in Contemporary Urban China

National Social Science Fund (NSSF-China): RMB200,000.00

Grant date: 25/06/18

Grant: PRC › Award

PI: Contemporary Urban Chinese Religions: An Institutional Analysis

Renmin University of China: HK$150,000.00

Grant date: 19/01/17

Grant: Internal › Award

PI: Transnational Chinese Christianity in Europe

National Social Science Fund (NSSF-China key project): RMB350,000.00

Grant date: 15/06/14

Grant: PRC › Award

PI: China’s Private Commercial Engagement in Africa: The Wenzhou Trade Diaspora in Nigeria

Research Grant Council (RGC): HK$608,546.00

Grant date: 26/09/12

Grant: RGC › Award

PI: Religion, Trade and Locality in a Chinese Diaspora: Wenzhou Christian Merchants in Paris

Research Grant Council (RGC): HK$408,800.00

Grant date: 16/09/09

Grant: RGC › Award

sociocultural anthropology, intangible heritage, religion, Chinese globalization, China-Africa engagements, global entrepreneurship, Belt & Road Initiative

External examiner of PhD theses for:  Renmin University of China, Zhejiang University, University of Hong Kong, Australian National University, University of Alberta.

Assessor, National Panel for Evaluation and Monitoring of Graduate Education Quality, Academic Degrees and Graduate Education Development Center, Ministry of Education

Grant reviewer for National Social Science Foundation of China.