Quinton Huang was born and raised in Kitimat, British Columbia (unceded and ancestral Haisla territory) and Vancouver, British Columbia (unceded and ancestral Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh territories). Currently, he is an MA student in the Department of History, advised by Prof. Leo Shin. He is also an Institute of Asian Research Fellow at the Centre for Southeast Asian Research, a Graduate Fellow at the Centre for Migration Studies, and a student associate of the Hong Kong Studies Initiative. He studied History and East Asian Studies for his undergraduate degree, with a focus on Hong Kong social history, Asian port cities, and East and Southeast Asian borderlands. His previous work experience includes teaching English as a Princeton-in-Asia fellow at Can Tho University (Vietnam), working on advancement at Fulbright University Vietnam, and researching transnational civil society and local diplomacies as a Junior Research Scholar at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. He is a board member of Strait Talk, a transnational youth civil society movement that organizes week-long conflict resolution symposia between young professionals from China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and North America on the Taiwan Strait conflict.

My MA research centers on the history of informal squatter settlements in postwar Hong Kong from 1945 to 1963. Though hundreds of thousands of people lived in these squatter settlements, which dotted the mountainsides of the colony in the wake of migration from China and parts of Southeast Asia, these illegal yet tolerated neighbourhoods have largely been overshadowed by Hong Kong’s public housing estates and skyscrapers. I am interested in how original inhabitants and new arrivals conceived and constructed ‘home’ through the use of everyday practices and narratives of identity drawn from multiple sources across time and space. I am also interested in thinking about how the ‘stuff’ of urban history—including material culture, manufactured goods, and public infrastructures—played pivotal roles in the formation of these squatter settlements, and consequently the rest of the city.

My secondary academic and policy interests include Ming-Qing history (particularly in South China), port cities and maritime histories of East and Southeast Asia, comparative colonialisms, Indigeneity in Asia, the diplomacies of local and regional governments, and transnational civil society.

Nov. 2023

“Canadian Twinning in the Indo-Pacific: The Agency of Non-Central Governments in Present Relationships and Future Strategies,” Canadian Political Science Review 17, no. 1 (2023): 25-56. https://doi.org/10.24124/c677/20231863. Co-authored with Scott Harrison.

Sept. 2022             

“Citizen or City Diplomacy? Diplomatic Co-Production and the Middle Ground in Municipal Twinning Relationships,” Hague Journal of Diplomacy 17, no. 4 (2022): 654–668. https://doi.org/10.1163/1871191x-bja10127. Co-authored with Scott Harrison.

July 2022

“In an Age of Crisis, Canadian Engagement Abroad Needs an ‘Ecosystem Approach,’” (op-ed, Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada, 27 July 2022). https://www.asiapacific.ca/publication/age-crisis-canadian-engagement-abroad-needs-ecosystem. Co-authored with Natasha Fox and Scott Harrison.

Mar. 2022                         

Toward an Ecosystem Approach: COVID-19, Canada-Asia Pacific Relations, and International Organizations (report, Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada, 8 March 2022), https://www.asiapacific.ca/sites/default/files/inline-files/PHAC-Paper4_MARCH_V2_0.pdf. Co-authored with Scott Harrison, Natasha Fox, and Amy Zhou.

May 2019                         

“Chinese American ‘Food Heritage’: Restaurants and Grocery Stores in ‘Greater Providence’” (Scalar project), https://scalar.usc.edu/works/chinese-american-food-heritage-restaurants-and-grocery-stores-in-greater-providence.

Prof. Leo Shin (History & Asian Studies)

Teaching Assistant, 2022W (Terms 1 & 2) and 2023W (Terms 1 & 2), HIST 103 World History since 1900 (Prof. Steven H. Lee)