Yuan Xu

Yuan Xu explores how media and everyday resistance shape activism and identity, examining how communities build connections and narrate their stories in changing cultural and digital landscapes.

Yuan Xu is a doctoral student at the Annenberg School for Communication. Her work examines how people engage in activism and express cultural identity through everyday life, both online and offline. She is particularly interested in the human discourse in/on social movements and the small but powerful ways people make their voices heard. Yuan’s previous work focuses on posters at Philadelphia’s #SaveChinatown/NoArena protest marches as well as online debates that spark wider conversations. She is interested in uncovering how these ordinary acts can build solidarity to make social change and evolve across generations. By studying how activism is embedded in daily life and cultural contexts, she seeks to understand how Asian communities create spaces of resistance and belonging beyond traditional forms of protest.