School of Geography and the Environment

Qiujie Shi is a DPhil student in Geography at St John's College and a Clarendon Scholar. She received her Bachelor's (first-class) degree in Urban Planning, and Master's degree in Human Geography, both from Peking University, China.

Her doctoral research compares inequalities in Beijing and London, and highlights how such a comparison can broaden our urban knowledge and advance a more global urban agenda. She has a wide range of research interests, including migration and citizenship, global cities, socio-spatial inequality, and comparative urbanism.

Qiujie's doctoral research sits at the boundary between social inequality and urban studies, comparing the social structure in Beijing and London with a global-local framework. This includes an evaluation of the demographic attributes of the labour market in each city and their relationships to the global city status and the institutional arrangements of the two cities; a study of earnings inequality dynamics and the global-local cooperation/contradiction underpinning the dynamics; and a study of socio-spatial inequality and its relationship to economic changes, neoliberalisation policies, and urban spatial expansion. The thesis contributes to research on social inequality, a policy-related issue, by revealing how inequality is influenced by neoliberalisation, state intervention, and local policies. Her doctoral research is funded by a joint Clarendon/Kendrew scholarship.

Journal Articles

• Shi, Q. and Cao, G. (2020) Urban spillover or rural industrialisation: which drives the growth of Beijing Metropolitan Area. Cities, 105. 102354.
• Shi, Q. and Dorling, D. (2020) Growing socio-spatial inequality in neo-liberal times? Comparing Beijing and London. Applied Geography, 115. 102139.
• Shi, Q. and Liu, T. (2020) Should internal migrants take full responsibility for spreading COVID-19? Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 52(4): 695-697.
• Shi, Q., Dorling, D., Cao, G. and Liu, T. (2020) Changes in population movement make COVID-19 spread differently from SARS. Social Science and Medicine, 255. 113036.
• Liu, T. and Shi, Q. (2019) Acquiring a Beijing hukou: Who Is Eligible and Who Is Successful? The China Quarterly: 1-14.
• Shi, Q. (2019) Compositions of the labour force: is Beijing different from London? Habitat International, 84: 33-42.
• Shi, Q. and Liu, T. (2019) Glimpsing China's future urbanization from the geography of a floating population. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 51(4): 817-819.
• Liu, T., Shi, Q., Wang, Y. and Yang, Y. (2018) Urban-rural development and occupation of cultivated land in China: Trends, geography, and drivers. Geographical Research, 37(8): 1609-1623. (In Chinese).
• Shi, Q., Liu, T. and Cao, G. (2017) Classifying villages and small towns for planning and construction guidance: Index development and application in China. Human Geography, 32(6): 121-128. (In Chinese).
• Shi, Q., Liu, T., Musterd, S. and Cao, G. (2017) How social structure changes in Chinese global cities: Synthesizing globalization, migration and institutional factors in Beijing. Cities, 60(Part A): 156-165.
• Cao, G., Shi, Q. and Liu, T. (2016) An integrated model of urban spatial structure: Insights from the distribution of floor area ratio in a Chinese city. Applied Geography, 75: 116-126.
• Cao, G. and Shi, Q. (2015) Traits, mechanism and regional impact of Beijing metropolitan area expansion. Journal of Beijing Union University: Humanities and Social Sciences, 13(4): 41-46. (In Chinese).

Blog Posts

• Shi, Q. and Liu, T. (2020) Human mobility spreads Covid-19, but whose mobility? The Coronavirus and Mobility Forum, Centre on Migration, Policy and Society, University of Oxford.
• Cao, G. and Shi, Q. (2020) What can the growth of the Beijing metropolitan area teach us about cities? PEAK Urban, Centre on Migration, Policy and Society, University of Oxford.
• Liu, T., Shi, Q. and Zhuo, Y. (2020) COVID-19: how population movement challenges public health. PEAK Urban, Centre on Migration, Policy and Society, University of Oxford.