Cathryn Hope Clayton

Cathryn Hope Clayton is an Associate Professor and Chair of the Asian Studies Program at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa. Her research examines Chineseness, sovereignty, and transnational identities through historical and anthropological lenses, focusing on 20th-century China and its diasporic communities. She holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of California, Santa Cruz (2001), alongside MA degrees from UC Santa Cruz (1996) and Stanford University (1992), and a BA from Williams College (1988).

Her work explores sovereignty’s role in shaping Chineseness, particularly through case studies of Macau’s colonial and post-colonial transitions. She has written extensively on Macau’s Cultural Revolution, mixed-race identities (hunxue’er), and the sociopolitical implications of Chinese nationalism. Clayton is also an active Chinese-English translator, focusing on film theory and activist texts.

Her publications include Sovereignty at the Edge: Macau and the Question of Chineseness (2009) and articles on topics such as ethnic classification in China and Macau’s urban development. Her research bridges anthropology, history, and cultural studies, addressing questions of identity, memory, and global power dynamics.