Introducing Xiao Ge: New Bridging Fellow in the Narrative Practices Lab

Today we welcome Xiao Ge, who joins The Platform as a 2025-26 Bridging Fellow with the Narrative Practices Lab and the School of Modern Languages and Culture. She holds a PhD in Women’s Studies from the University of York, where her doctoral research investigated the commercialisation of zuoyuezi (‘sitting the month’) in China. Positioned at the intersection of political economy, feminist cultural studies, and medical humanities, her work challenges Eurocentric, biomedical and individualised models of health by reframing postpartum well-being as a culturally situated practice of self-care, negotiation, and embodied resistance. Xiao’s Fellowship project – entitled ‘Redrafting Futures: Postpartum Stillness, Craft and the Remaking of Selves – will pilot creative, participatory workshops that reimagine postpartum ‘self-care’ as collective feminist preservation.

1. If your research was a film, what would the title be? 

This is a difficult question. If my research were a film, its title would be Warfare. This is a deliberate provocation. Inspired by Audre Lorde’s framing of self-care as an act of political warfare, I see my project as challenging dominant systems of neoliberalism, patriarchy, and authoritarianism. But unlike conventional warfare, this isn’t about violence or control. It’s about carving out spaces of collective reflection, community building, and embodied care that resist exploitation and demand alternative ways of nurturing ourselves, our relationships, and our environment. It’s also a reminder that we cannot think about care and survival in abstraction – because real wars and genocides today are traumatising and destroying lives. I want to use this project to imagine warfare otherwise: as a feminist, relational, and deeply political practice of survival and cultivation.

2. What will you be doing during your Bridging Fellowship? 

The most exciting thing for me is piloting creative, participatory methods to reimagine postpartum “sitting” not as controlled and disciplined recovery, but as an active feminist practice of reflection and resistance. This means testing what I call the “sitting with” framework – developing workshops and craft-based methods that help women explore self-care beyond individualistic, consumerist models, and instead imagine care as collective, relational, and resistant. 

3. What expertise and experiences will you be drawing on during the fellowship? 

I’ll draw on my PhD research into the intersections of neoliberalism, gender, and reproductive health in China, as well as my experience of working with multi-stakeholder groups – from postpartum women and their families to carers, entrepreneurs, and industry practitioners. Theoretically, I’ll be drawing on my expertise in feminist theory, Chinese philosophy such as Daoism to rethink self-care as a political act. Methodologically, I want to explore creative approaches, especially craft, which will allow me to foreground the messy, relational, and embodied aspects of lived experience that resist neat narratives. This combination of theory and practice will guide how I develop and test new ways of understanding and practising care during the fellowship.

4. Why are you excited about working in The Platform? 

I’m particularly excited about the Creative Facilitation Unit, which will push me to develop methods beyond written narratives. I am also looking forward to having the opportunity to visit the School of Medical Humanities at Peking University, one of IMH’s global partners, to further develop my framework in cross-cultural dialogue and work on decolonising ideas of healing in medical humanities. I’m also eager to collaborate with partners such as ReCoCo and St Anthony’s Health Centre, extending my research beyond commercial settings and into underserved and migrant communities in the UK. 

5. What changes would you like to see as a result of your research? 

The change I’d like to see is a shift away from individualised, goal-oriented models of wellbeing – a type of ‘therapeutic governance’ – toward recognising care as relational, embodied, and collective. My research shows that women’s postpartum experiences are messy, contradictory, and deeply shaped by social contexts, not just individual choices. I also want to challenge how research itself often demands neat, linear stories that can flatten lived experience. Instead, I aim to create space for narratives and practices that embrace vulnerability, ambiguity, and interdependence.

6. What interests or hobbies do you have outside your research that might surprise people? 

I love bouldering and crafting. Both remind me of the importance of embodied presence. In climbing, every move is about being fully aware of my body and limits; in crafting, joy comes not from finishing a product but from the tactile, process-driven making. These practices ground me in the here-and-now, echoing the same themes of embodiment, stillness, and care that I explore in my research.