March 24, 2026
New Article on Chinatowns and Cultural Trauma Published in American Sociological Review
Matt Patterson (Associate Professor, Sociology) along with his co-investigator, Henry Tsang (Associate Professor, Architecture, Athabasca University), and research assistants, Bryan Kuk (PhD, Sociology), Weiqi Li (Honours Undergraduate, Sociology), and Mojtaba Rostami (PhD, Sociology), have published “Living with Ghosts: How Physical Traces of the Past Shape Cultural Trauma in Chinatowns” in American Sociological Review.
The article draws on five years of research into efforts to preserve historic Chinatowns across Canada and the United States, and began in support of the City of Calgary’s “Tomorrow’s Chinatown” cultural planning process. In this article, the authors examine how Chinatown preservation movements are informed by a history of anti-Chinese racism and exclusion, which includes the imposition of the Chinese head tax and exclusion laws (1885-1947), and postwar “slum clearance” programs. In particular, the article demonstrates how the physical environment of Chinatown acts as a medium that makes the events of the past salient to how contemporary communities understand themselves and perceive present and future threats to their neighbourhood.
The included photo is of Chu Honsun’s sculpture “In Search of Gold Mountain”, which is discussed in the article. The article’s title, “Living with Ghosts,” is a reference to the work of the late Vancouver-based poet and activist Jim Wong-Chu.
The article is available