Background
Dr. Mingyuan Zhang Betancourt is a sociocultural anthropologist by training. She received her PhD degree from the Department of Anthropology at the University of Western Ontario in 2018. Her doctoral research focuses on how the meaning of “being Chinese” is culturally constructed in northern Madagascar, and the social implications of Chinese-led development projects in the same region. Prior to joining Helsam, she was a writing fellow at the Centre for Ethnography at the Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto Scarborough. She has also taught at the Department of Anthropology and the Centre for Critical Development Studies at the University of Toronto Scarborough. At UiO, she is part of three research projects: “From Asia to Africa: Antibiotic Trajectories across the Indian Ocean,” "Universal Health Coverage and the Public Good in Africa: An Anthropological Study," and "How did the Antibiotic Pipeline Run Dry." She speaks and writes Mandarin Chinese and English fluently, and has a working knowledge of French, Spanish, Norwegian, and the dialect of Malagasy spoken in northern Madagascar.
Academic interests
Antibiotics and Global Public Health, Anthropology of Pharmaceuticals, Medical Anthropology, Political Ecology, Corruption and Bureaucracy, Diaspora and Transnational Migration, Ethnographic Writing and Methods, Madagascar & the Indian Ocean World, Global China
Courses taught
Reading Ethnography (University of Toronto)
Topics in International Development Studies – China and Africa in the World: Culture, Globalization, and Development (University of Toronto)
Introduction to Anthropology: Society, Culture and Language (University of Toronto)
Many Ways of Being Human: Introduction to Socio-cultural Anthropology (University of Western Ontario)