Beatrice ZANI

Research Fellow at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS)
Researcher at the French Research Center for Contemporary China (CEFC Taipei)
Researcher at the Research Institute on Contemporary Southeast Asia 
Visiting Scholar, Institute of Sociology, Academia Sinica (2026-2027)

Member of the team of ANR FORSEA

beatrice.zani cnrs.fr

Beatrice Zani is a sociologist and ethnographer and a research fellow at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS). Since January 2026, she has been affiliated with the French Centre for Research on Contemporary China (CEFC) in Taipei and with IRASEC. Her research focuses on transnational migrant labor in the Asian fishing and maritime transport industries (China, Taiwan, Singapore, Indonesia). She examines the interconnections between labor and commodity mobilities, the reconfigurations of globalized work, and the role of supply chains, informal economies, and digitalization in the transformations of contemporary capitalism. She is the Principal Investigator (PI) of the ANR-funded project “FORSEA : Migrations and Forced Labour in the Maritime Economies of Globalized Asia” (2026–2028) and co-coordinates, with Hung Po-yi, the project “ORCHID : Global Mobilities in the Digital Age” (2026–2027) (CNRS/National Taiwan University).

Her work has been published in Ethnic and Racial Studies, Asia Pacific Viewpoint, Globalizations, International Migration, Emotion, Space and Society, and Journal of Chinese Overseas. She is the author of Women Migrants in Southern China and in Taiwan : Mobilities, Digital Economies and Emotions (Routledge, 2022) and, with Valentine Boucq, Émilie Garcia, Lou Herrmann, and Malou Allagnat, of the sociological graphic novel Femmes, soutiens-gorge et pattes de poulet : Le voyage du Made in China [Women, Bras and Chicken Feet : The Journey of Made in China] (Presses universitaires de Montréal, forthcoming 2026).

Research fields

• Economic sociology
• Mobilities 
• Labor and marriage migration
• Globalization
• Fishing and shipping industries

PROFESSIONAL APPOINTMENTS

• Since September 2023 : Tenured Researcher, French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), Interdisciplinary Unit for Economic Sociology (LISE)
• 2021-2023 : Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Department of East-Asian Studies, McGill University (Montreal, CA)
• 2020-2021 : Postdoctoral Research Fellow, the European Research Centre of Contemporary Taiwan, Department of Social Sciences, University of Tübingen (Germany)

RECENT VISITING FELLOWHSIPS

• 2026-2027 Visiting scholar, Institute of Sociology, Academia Sinica
• 2026 Visiting faculty, Department of Sociology, National Taiwan University
• 2025 Visting Scholar, Bandan Riset dan Inovasi Nasional, Jakarta

RECENT GRANTS AND ONGOING PROJECTS

• 2026-2028 : French National Research Agency (ANR) Research Grant (457,000 EUR) - Grant N. 313270. Project title : Migrations and Forced Labor in the Maritime Economies of Globalized Asia (FORSEA)
• 2025-2026 : Franco Taiwanese PHC ORCHID (Campus France/ Taiwan Science and Technology Council) Research Grant (15, 000 EUR). Project title : ‘Global Mobility in the Digital Age : Crossed perspectives on France and Taiwan’, with Po-Yi Hung, National Taiwan University/ Global Asia Research Center (GARC)
• 2024-2027 : Chiang Ching Kuo (CCK) Foundation Research Grant (70, 000 EUR), with I. Cockel, University of Portsmouth - Grant N. RG010-U-23. Project title : ‘Out of Sight, Out of Mind ? Migrant Fishers, Seafarers and Farmhands and the Impact of Digitality on their Work, Life and Activism’.

PUBLICATIONS

Monograph

• Zani, Beatrice. 2022. Women Migrants in Southern China and in Taiwan. Mobilities, digital economies and emotions. Abington and New York : Routledge

Book

• Roulleau-Berger, Laurence, Giraudo, Grégory, Zani, Beatrice et Vérena Richardier. 2024. La ville indécente.
• Migration, subalternité et hospitalité. Toulouse : PUM

Edited Volume

• Zani, Beatrice and Isabelle Cockel (Eds). 2024. Living across Connectivity. Intimacy, Entrepreneurship, and Activism of East Asian Migrants Online and Offline. London and New York : Anthem Press

Refereed Journal Articles

• 2025. Bumps, Hits and Hurdles : Multidirectional Pathways of Migration and Citizenship across the Taiwan Strait, Ethnic and Racial Studies. DOI : 10.1080/01419870.2024.2441911
• 2024. Cockel, I., Zani, B., & Parhusip, J. S. ‘Fettered mobility’ and translocality : Irregular farm workers and the informal labour market in rural Taiwan. Transitions : Journal of Transient Migration. DOI : https://doi.org/10.1386/tjtm_00060_1
• 2023. Cockel, I and B. Zani. ‘There will be no law, or people to protect us’ Irregular Southeast Asian seasonal workers in Taiwan before and during the pandemic. Journal of Agrarian Change, 23(3). 634-644. DOI : 10.1111/joac.12550
• 2023. Zani, Beatrice and Cockel, Isabelle. Introduction. Migrants and their smartphones. Interlaced mobilities online and offline. Transfers : Interdisciplinary Journal of Mobility Studies 13 (2022/1) : 3-7.
• 2023. Zani, Beatrice and Cockel, Isabelle. How Far Can Chicken Feet Travel ? The transgression of contested sovereign borders and Chinese women’s e-entrepreneurship between Taiwan and China. Transfers : Interdisciplinary Journal of Mobility Studies 13 (2022/1) : 66-85.
• 2023. Cockel, Isabelle, Zani, Beatrice and Parhusip, Johnatan. There will be no law, or people to protect us’ Irregular Southeast Asian seasonal workers in Taiwan before and during the pandemic. Journal of Agrarian Change, 23(3). 634-644. DOI : 10.1111/joac.12550
• 2022. Liaisons troubles en maisons closes. Faire et défaire des complicités dans un salon de massages de Taipei (Risky relationships in a whorehouse. Doing and undoing complicity within a massage centre in Taipei]. Terrain 77 : 301–317
• 2022. Transnational migrant cyberfamilies’ e-entrepreneurship. Case study of Chinese women in Montreal.
• Hommes et migrations 1337 (2) : 35–43. DOI : 10.4000/hommesmigrations.13920
• 2022. Orange bras, gendered petit capitalism and e-entrepreneurs. On the backroads of globalisation between China and Taiwan. Globalizations. DOI : 10.1080/14747731.2022.2082098
• 2021. Digital Entrepreneurship. E-commerce among Chinese Marriage-Migrant Women in Taiwan.
• Journal of Chinese Overseas 17(2) : 265–292. DOI : 10.1163/17932548-12341445.
• 2021. Shall WeChat ? Switching between online and offline ethnography. Bulletin of Methodological Sociology 152(1) : 52–75. DOI : 10.1177/07591063211040229
• 2021. Pattes de poulet, colis cachés et entrepreneuses connectées. Migration et entrepreneuriat digital entre Chine et Taiwan. Sociologie du travail 63(3). DOI : 10.4000/sdt.39634
• Schubert, Gunter, Shelly Rigger, Beatrice Zani, Shirley Lin, and Jay Rou Chen. 2021. Delimiting ‘Cross-Strait Studies’ : Kua’an (跨岸) vs. Liang’an (兩岸). International Journal of Taiwan Studies 4 (1) : 163–191. DOI : 10.1163/24688800-20201193
• Zani, Beatrice and Momesso, Lara. 2021. Can the subaltern feel ? An ethnography of migration, subalternity and emotion. Emotion, Space and Society 39. DOI : 10.1016/j.emospa.2021.100786
• 2020. Trado Ergo Sum. Migranti cinesi, piattaforme digitali ed economie multipolari sulle strade secondarie della globalizzazione. Quaderni di sociologia 82 (3) : 43–64. DOI : 10.4000/qds.3676
• 2020. WeChat, We Sell, We Feel. Chinese Migrant Women’s Emotional Petit Capitalism. International Journal of Cultural Studies 23(5) : 803–820. DOI : 10.1177/1367877920923360
• 2020. In-between. Re-migration, Orbital Mobilities and Emotional Circulations of Chinese Women from Taiwan back to China. Asian Pacific Viewpoint 61(3) : 494–508. DOI : 10.1111/apv.12254
• 2018. Gendered Transnational Ties and Multipolar Economies : Chinese Migrant Women WeChat Commerce in Taiwan. International Migration 57 (4) : 232–246. DOI : 10.1111/imig.12526

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