Academic Staff
FAYARD, Gregory Michael
Assistant Professor
PhD, University of California, Berkeley
Research Interests:
Political sociology, nations and nationalism, globalization and development, contemporary China, tourism, environmental sociology, mobilities, and social media
My work centers on the politics of mobility, specifically how transportation and travel shape our perceptions of the world and our collective behavior. Transportation systems not only build off outstanding power structures but affect how social boundaries are drawn and maintained. Broadly conceived, my goals are to bring studies of automobiles, highways, streets, railways, bicycling, and traffic regulation into mainstream sociology. Exploring geographic mobility is especially important in a world marked by climate change, where transportation constitutes over ¼ of global greenhouse gas emissions, and has been the fastest growing category of emissions.
My current research focus is exploring the politics of mobility in contemporary China. I demonstrate how highways are integral to state building, how tourists help stabilize and normalize ethnic differences in China, how traffic accidents are processed as moral crises, the use of roadside tourism for economic development in Tibet, and how techno-policing of streets is used as an instrument of building Chinese soft power. My most recent papers on this topic have been published in China Quarterly and Social Problems.
Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals
In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):
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(For complete list of publications, please view Staff CV.)
Peer-reviewed Publication
G Fayard. 2024. “Revisiting cultural approaches to Chinese tourists.” Annals of Tourism Research. (online first).
G Fayard. 2023. “The Geopolitics of outbound travel: Theorizing outgoing tourism as state strategy.” Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, November 26, 2023, 1–20.
G Fayard 2023. “Theorising the Politics of Tourism: Global Travel and the Nation-State.” Millennium: Journal of International Studies 51, no. 2: 489–518.
G Fayard. 2022. “Politics as a vacation: Tourist practices and the building of the nation-state.” Social Problems spac004.
G Fayard. 2021. “Sun, sand, and submachine guns: Tourism in a militarized Xinjiang, China.” China Quarterly 248(1), 1129-1151.
G Fayard. 2019. “Road injury prevention in China: current state and future challenges.” Journal of Public Health Policy 40 (3): 292–307.
G Fayard. 2009. “Fatal occupational injuries involving natural disasters, 1992-2006.” Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness 3 (4): 201-209.
G Fayard. 2008. “Fatal occupational injuries in parking lots, 1993-2002.” Journal of Safety Research 39 (1): 9-18.
D Houry, C Parramore, G Fayard, J Thorn, S Heron, A Kellerman. 2004. “Characteristics of household addresses that repeatedly contact 911 to report intimate partner violence.” Academic Emergency Medicine 11 (6): 662-667.
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