Yan, Laura Wing Mei

Laura Yan is a Ph.D. candidate in International and Global History at Columbia University with interests in Indian Ocean history, imperialism and decolonization with a focus on Southeast and South Asia, global labor and capitalism, and urban history. Her research explores changing ideas about home and belonging among migrant port workers in Singapore as the British imperial port became a city-state by comparing port labor practices, urban life, and notions of kinship and ethnicity in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Bombay. Her dissertation research has been supported by the Social Science Research Council International Dissertation Research Fellowship, the Wellesley College Katherine Conway Preyer Fellowship, and the Weatherhead East Asian Institute. At Columbia, Laura has served as a teaching assistant for Vietnam in the World with Lien-Hang Nguyen, South Asia II with Anupama Rao, and Modern Middle East with Rashid Khalidi. She also co-organized with Sohini Chattopadhyay the 2020 conference Bombay and Indian Ocean Urbanisms. Originally from Hong Kong, Laura received a B.A. with honors in History and Middle Eastern Studies from Wellesley College in 2014.

Publications
Laura Yan. ““Owned them like a Father": Labor Contractors, Port Workers, and the Makings of Ethnicity in Singapore.” Journal of Indian Ocean World Studies 5, no. 1 (2021): 25-46.
https://doi.org/10.26443/jiows.v5i1.97