Lan Feng

Lan Feng is an MPhil/PhD student in Anthropology and Mental Health at SOAS. She studied social anthropology at SOAS, where she received her MA. 

She has also obtained a master's degree in media, aligning with her previous career in journalism and the digital transformation of conventional media in Beijing. Lan has worked as a journalist and editor for Beijing Documental Magazine and as a project associate director for Xiaomi Corporation. She is currently pursuing her PhD in Anthropology and Mental Health at SOAS, with a research focus on the mental health conditions of Chinese adolescents. Lan's academic pursuits reflect her diverse interests and professional transitions.

 Her research now focuses on understanding the experiences of mental health issues encountered by Chinese adolescents in urban areas, a subject deeply informed by her personal experiences and academic journey. While coming from an underprivileged background, Lan's career path demonstrates her adaptability and resilience, transitioning from a traditional journalist at Beijing Documentary Magazine to a digital editor and later a project associate director at Xiaomi Corporation. Her upbringing instilled in her a strong sense of perseverance and resourcefulness, which she has carried forward into her academic pursuits. Despite the potential for advancement in her corporate career, Lan Feng opted to pursue an academic trajectory driven by lingering existential inquiries regarding the reshaping of selfhood and the meaning of emotional distress and mental anguish during economic reforms in Chinese society. 

Her academic odyssey has been characterised by a deepening engagement with social and medical anthropology, resonating with her fascination for human suffering and socio-dynamics across cultures. Her research endeavours seek to untangle the complexities of mental illness experiences in the Chinese context, examining themes of emotions, inter-generational impacts, and socio-economic change through the prism of mental health. Lan's decision to pursue a PhD is motivated not only by personal growth but also by a desire to contribute to the well-being of others by collaborating with Chinese psychotherapists and psychiatrists, particularly within the realms of adolescent mental health and family dynamics. Her journey serves as an inspiration to those navigating the pursuit of knowledge in the quest for a more compassionate and enlightened world.

My research interests lie in the anthropological perspective of mental health in China. Specifically, I focus on understanding the complexities of mental illnesses among female Chinese adolescents in middle-class families. My study is designed for comparative analysis across urban regions in China, with a particular emphasis on the significance of depression and bipolar disorder within psychiatric discourse. 

Central to my inquiry is the exploration of how depression and bipolar disorder are reconstructed and contextualised within Chinese society, encompassing a wide range of local actors, including individuals, psychiatric and psychological experts, cultural perceptions of mental health, political-economic interests, the pharmaceutical industry, regulatory policies, and ideologies, operating within the recursive interaction between global influences and local power dynamics. 

Drawing on insights from cross-cultural anthropology and global mental health, my research aims to contribute to the localisation and stabilisation of depression and bipolar disorder within Chinese society. This includes consideration of cosmopolitan psychiatry's perspectives on brain-based chemical imbalances and pharmaceutical interventions. Beyond diagnostic categories, I am interested in delving into the phenomenological and experiential dimensions of mental distress/mood disorders. I seek to explore how bipolar disorder and depression acquire meaning through therapeutic encounters and everyday life experiences, and how Chinese youth make suffering visible and meaning accessible through psychiatric language, to both themselves and researchers. 

Additionally, I aim to understand the intricate relationships between inter-generational impacts, familial conflicts, and mental distress in Chinese adolescents' lives within a historical trajectory of socio-economic transformation, neither victimising young patients nor stigmatising their caregivers, but rather revealing institutional forces. Through narrative storytelling, I will investigate the multi-dimensional meaning-making processes surrounding mental health issues among Chinese youth, considering historical, socio-cultural, and political influences. By engaging with semantic networks, my research aims to illuminate the underlying socio-cultural-economic causes of mental disorders and provide alternative perspectives for those experiencing mental health issues.