Cara Xu is a PhD candidate at 麻豆視頻_麻豆直播_麻豆传媒官网, supported by institutional sponsorship. She has over ten years of experience in the media and creative industries, where she held managerial and director roles leading cross-functional teams and projects.

Her MBA from the University of Birmingham marked a transition from industry to academic inquiry. Her doctoral research explores creative labour in China’s digital economy, with a particular focus on the normalisation of precarity, the structural inequalities shaping women creators’ experiences, and the ways they navigate temporary anxiety and self-exploration.

Grounded in cultural and feminist studies, her work offers critical insights into gender, affect, and labour in platformised creative cultures.

PGR Supervisors: Prof Lise Jaillant and Dr Jilly Kay

Cara’s research examines women creators on Xiaohongshu, focusing on precarity as a norm, gendered inequalities, and how creators frame anxiety as temporary while pursuing self-exploration. She works at the intersection of cultural and feminist studies.