Dr Christina Maags

School of East Asian Studies

Senior Lecturer in Chinese Studies

c.maags@sheffield.ac.uk

Jessop West

Full contact details

Dr Christina Maags
School of East Asian Studies
Jessop West
1 Upper Hanover Street
Sheffield
S3 7RA

Profile

Dr Maags joined SEAS in 2020 after working as Lecturer in Chinese Politics at SOAS (2017-2020).

She completed a PhD in Political Science at the University of Frankfurt, Germany (2017) and studied in Oxford, Frankfurt and Bonn. In addition, she has been a visiting fellow at the Australian National University (2016).

Qualifications: BA Asian Studies (Bonn); MA East Asian Studies (Frankfurt); Msc Comparative Social Policy (Oxford); PhD Political Science (Frankfurt)

Research interests: Christina's research interests include political economy, multi-level governance and local policy implementation in the People’s Republic of China. Using these analytical frameworks as a lens, she has particularly conducted research on cultural heritage politics and the politics of demographic ageing in contemporary China.

Publications

Books

Maags C & Zhu Y (2020) Heritage Politics in China: The Power of the Past. Routledge.
Maags C & Svensson M (2018) Chinese Cultural Heritage in the Making: Experiences, Negotiations and Contestations. Amsterdam University Press.

Journal articles

Maags C (2023) State institutions as building blocks of China’s Infrastructures of memory – the case of intangible heritage. Journal of Current Chinese Affairs.
Maags C & Demgenski P (2021) 中国非物质文化遗产与市场: 自我经营的非遗传承人. 文化遗产.
Maags C (2020) Hybridization in China's elder care service provision. Social Policy & Administration. View this article in WRRO
Maags C (2020) Disseminating the policy narrative of ‘Heritage under threat’ in China. International Journal of Cultural Policy, 26(3), 273-290.
Maags C (2020) Long‐term care insurance adoption in East Asia : politics, ideas, and institutions. Politics & Policy, 48(1), 69-106.
Maags C (2019) Lost and Found: The “Missing Girls” in Rural China. By John James Kennedy and Yaojiang Shi. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019. 240p. $99.99 cloth, $29.95 paper.. Perspectives on Politics, 17(4), 1227-1229.
Maags C (2019) Struggles of recognition: adverse effects of China’s living human treasures program. International Journal of Heritage Studies, 25(8), 780-795.
Maags C & Trifu I (2019) When East Meets West: International Change and Its Effects on Domestic Cultural Institutions. Politics & Policy, 47(2), 326-380.
Maags C & Holbig H (2016) Replicating Elite Dominance in Intangible Cultural Heritage Safeguarding: The Role of Local Government–Scholar Networks in China. International Journal of Cultural Property, 23(1), 71-97.
Maags C (2014) Enhancing China’s National Image Through Culture Festivals: A Case Study of China Culture Years in Europe. Fudan Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences, 7(1), 33-55.
Maags C () Common, Luxury and Fake Commodities: Intangible Cultural Heritage Markets in China. China Perspectives.
Maags C () Marketization of Eldercare in Urban China: Processes, Effects and Implications. Modern China.

Chapters

Alpermann B & Maags C (2024) Eldercare Services in Urban China, Complexity Thinking and China’s Demography Within and Beyond Mainland China (pp. 27-63). Springer Nature Singapore
Maags C (2021) Cultural heritage politics in China In Shei C (Ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Chinese Studies (pp. 177-177). Routledge
Maags C (2018) Cultural Contestation in China: Ethnicity, Identity and the State In Rodenberg J & Wagenaar P (Ed.), Cultural Contestation: Heritage, Ethnicity and the Role of Government
Maags C (2018) Creating a Race to the Top, Chinese Heritage in the Making (pp. 121-144). Amsterdam University Press
Maags C & Svensson M (2018) Mapping the Chinese Heritage Regime: Ruptures, Governmentality, and Agency In Maags C & Svensson M (Ed.), Chinese Heritage in the Making Experiences, Negotiations and Contestations
Maags C & Trifu I (2018) Protecting the Weak? Tracing UNESCO’s Influence on Intangible Cultural Heritage Regimes in Japan and China In Amelung I, Baelz M, Holbig H, Matthias S & Storz C (Ed.), Protecting the Weak in East Asia. Framing, Mobilisation, Institutionalisation
Maags C (2018) Creating a Race to the Top Hierarchies and Competition within the Chinese ICH Transmitters System, CHINESE HERITAGE IN THE MAKING: EXPERIENCES, NEGOTIATIONS AND CONTESTATIONS (pp. 121-144).

Book reviews

Maags C (2023) Coalitions of the Weak: Elite Politics in China from Mao’s Stratagem to the Rise of Xi. The Journal of Development Studies, 59(7), 1117-1118.
Maags C (2022) Book Review: Workers and Change in China: Resistance, Repression, Responsiveness by Manfred Elfstrom. China Information, 36(1), 145-147.
Maags C (2019) “Popular Protest in China” (Teresa Wright). The Political Quarterly, 90(3).
Maags C (2018) Financing Healthcare in China: Towards Universal Health Insurance Sabrina Ching Yuen Luk London and New York: Routledge, 2017 xii + 137 pp. £90.00 ISBN 978-1-138-84439-1. The China Quarterly, 235.

Research group

Dr Maags is currently working on two major research projects:

Political Economy of Elder Care in China

This project examines the development of elder care services across China. It compares how differences in multi-level governance across space result in diverging approaches to elder care service development in urban and rural areas and by extension diversity in local elder care service industries.

Intangible Heritage, the Market & the Stat

This project examines the political economy underlying the marketization of intangible cultural heritage in the tourism and creative industries in China, particularly focusing on how these affect cultural practitioners.

In her research, Dr Maags pays particular attention to interactions and interdependencies across global, national and local scales.

Teaching interests

Dr Maags believes that teaching courses means to take students on a “journey”. Throughout the course students are familiarised with different issues and perspectives which need to be critically engaged and discussed.

Her teaching therefore focuses on letting students interact with the course topic in various ways so as to get different experiences in relation to the topic of the course.

To do so, Dr Maags includes a variety of sources (reading materials, films/documentaries, online talks, policies and laws) and types of exercises in her teaching so as to keep students interested and engaged throughout the journey.

Teaching activities

For academic year 2021/22 I am teaching the following modules:

EAS1000 Exploring East Asia
EAS6143 Political Economy of China
EAS680 State and Economy in Contemporary China