Dan Li

Dan Li is an economic anthropologist whose research focuses on entrepreneurship, the informal economy, digital finance, migrant labour, platform economies, global supply chains, mobile phones, and China’s economic reform.

Dan received her PhD in Anthropology from LSE. Her doctoral research examines the entrepreneurship of mobile phones in China. Drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork in Shenzhen, her thesis explores how grassroots migrant entrepreneurs create livelihoods amid opportunities and challenges arising from oversupply, mass entrepreneurship, digital finance and logistics reforms. It also examines how they navigate shifting regulatory regimes. e.g. IP law, digital platforms, and the urban informal sector.

Dan teaches Economic Anthropology at LSE. Prior to PhD, she conducted research on migrant labour and digital money.

Expertise

Entrepreneurship; Digital platforms and technologies; Financialisaton and digital credit; Migrant labour and urbanisation; Global supply chains and grassroots globalisation; Market; Shanzhai (copycats) mobile phones; Repair and tacit knowledge