I’m an anthropologist on the sociality of numbers. Using ethnographic, linguistic, and historical approaches, my research explores how people quantify the geography in relation to urban-rural migration and social stratification.
Sheng Long is the Postdoctoral Research Scholar and Lecturer in Anthroplogy at Yale University. Her first manuscript project, Numbering Earth: The Mathematics of Geography and Subjectivity in Agrarian China, is an ethnography of geographic data in national reforms and everyday agriculture. It examines the contribution and vulnerability of rural landholders in the state’s statistical governance of agrarian resources. The work thematizes numbers as an unsettling actor in both routine life and techno-scientific projects, questioning the power dynamics in technologies invented by government and giant corporations. This research was supported by the Social Science Research Council, the National Science Foundation, the Wenner-Gren Foundation.
Research Interest
Anthropology of numbers; geographic data; agriculture and environment; the politics and ethics of datafication; agrarian studies; property and belonging; sociolegal studies; critical STS; digital landscape; China, Hakka diasporas in Asia
Research
Dissertation
“Numbering Land: The Ethical Measures of Subjectivity and Geography in Agrarian Reforms.” University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 2023.
Honorable Mention, the ProQuest Distinguished Dissertation Award
Publications
"(In)Justice for Whom: Alternative Theories and the Absence of Scientific Language," in Climate Justice Now: Crossing Disciplines to Combat Our Planet Crisis, edited by Rebecca Marwege, Nikhar Gaikward, and Joerg Schaefer, Columbia University Press, Feb 2026
“The Anxiety of (Mis)Naming: Mapping Chronotopic Affects in China’s Geo-Databases.” History and Anthropology, 2025 April. 1-26.
"The Sociality and Performativity of Texts: Commentary to Sanft's Article on Early China Writing," in Fragments: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Ancient and Medieval Pasts, 2019. Vol.8, pp. 79-86.
“The Changing Figures of Yang Xuanzhi in Chinese Buddhist Canons” (published in Chinese 杨炫之形象在中国佛教史中的演变) in Chinese Folk Culture Study, 2009, Issue No.6, pp.196-207.
Interview with Crystal Biruk on her book Cooking Data: Culture and Politics in an African Research World, on CaMP (Communication, Media, and Performance) Anthropology website 2021.
“Gender and Technology in Contemporary China” (Co-authored with Katherine Dimmery), Oxford Bibliographies. (Under review)
Work-in-progress
“Studying Neither Up nor Down: Anthropological Reversed Hierarchies in Technological Projects.” In preparation. Research article for a special issue
“Numerical Violence: Calculation of Social Categories in Socialist Movements.” In preparation. Journal article
“Contracting Trees: Legalizing Wood Trade in Ungoverned Forest.” Research article for a special issue that I co-edit, The Technologies of Writing in Multilingual Asia
Selected Presentations
2024-11
“‘Don’t want a big number’: Debating Countability and Accountability in National Land Survey.” American Anthropological Association annual meeting, Tampa
2024-05
Contributor. Book Workshop, Earth Networks, Columbia University
2024-04
Invited panelist. Roundtable “At the Crossroad of Justice: Environment, Data.” The Center of Science and Society, Columbia University
2024-03
Invited panelist. Roundtable “Anthropology, Science & Society.” Anthropology Section, New York Academy of Sciences.
2023-09
“Circulation of Numbers: State Violence of Quantifying Subjectivity and Geography.” The Boas Talk Series, the Department of Anthropology, Columbia University
2023-11
“Translocal Nexus in Building China’s Land Databases,” American Anthropological Association annual meeting, Toronto, Canada
2022-11
“Human Behind Mountain Fires: Forest Police's Disaster Investigation and Ecological Negotiation.” American Anthropological Association annual meeting, Seattle
2021-11
“Expertise in Reading Geographies: Geomancy, Kinship, and Law in Rural China.” American Anthropological Association annual meeting, Baltimore
2021-05
“Tactile Numbers: The Authority and Embodiment of Measuring in Agricultural Sales.” presented in the 22nd Annual Michicagoan Linguistic Anthropology Conference, Chicago (Virtual)
