Dr David Bray

BA Melb, PhD Melb
Lecturer
Room 639, Brennan/MacCallum Building A18
david.bray@arts.usyd.edu.au
Telephone: +61 2 9351 2868
Fax: +61 2 9351 2319

I commenced this post at Sydney in January 2005. Prior to Sydney I lectured in Chinese Politics at the East Asia Institute, University of Cambridge, UK (2000-2004) and have previously also taught at Monash, Melbourne and RMIT. My academic training has been primarily in the areas of political and social theory and Chinese language (Mandarin). My doctoral research was on the socialist workunit (danwei) system in China, particularly focussing on its role in the governance of urban China. A book based on this research was published in 2005 (details below). Over the years I have spent more than three years in China, variously at Shandong Teachers’ University, Beijing Language Institute, Beijing University and the Chinese University of Politics and Law. My current research on community governance takes me to China at least once a year.

• The political and social organisation of modern/contemporary China
• Chinese urban planning and architecture
• Social and political theory and its application to the study of China

• Community governance in contemporary urban China
• Architecture and urban planning in modern China
• The spatial transformation of the Chinese city

Books

• 2005 Social Space and Governance in Urban China: The Danwei System from Origins to Reform, Stanford, Stanford University Press. (Online information here.)

Book chapters

• 2006. ‘Urban design and community governance in China: a study of space and power’, in Paola Pellegrini and Paola Vigano (eds.), Comment Vivre Ensemble: Prototypes of Idiorythmical Conglomerations and Shared Spaces. Roma: Officina Edizioni: 81-99.

Journal articles

• 2006. ‘Building “Community”: New Strategies of Governance in Urban China’, Economy and Society. Vol. 35, no. 4: 530-549. (Accessible online here.)

Conference Papers (refereed)

• 2006. ‘Garden estates and social harmony: a study into the relationship between residential planning and urban governance in contemporary China’, in Zhan Guo, Jinhua Zhao and Ming Guo (eds.), Conference Proceedings, China Planning Network 3rd Annual Conference, held in conjunction with the 1st International Conference of China City Planning and Development, Beijing 14-16 June 2006. (Available online here.)

• 2nd Year Chinese (Mandarin) (CHNS 2601 and CHNS 2602)
• Individual and Society in Post-Mao China (CHNS 6975)
• Remaking Chinese Society 1949-2000 (ASNS2618)
• Citizens and Politics in China Today (ASNS3617
• Chinese Politics (GOVT 6111) (Master of International Studies)

• Association of Asian Studies (US), Annual Meeting, Chicago, March 31-April 3 2005; Paper title: ‘Governing social space in urban China: courtyards, workunits and gated communities’.
• Political Practice in Modern China, Conference organised by the East Asia Institute, held at Churchill College, Cambridge, June 26-27, 2002. Paper title: ‘Building shequ: towards a new collectivism?’.