Her research centers on topics such as work, gender, and the cultural aspects of markets, and most of her research has focused on contemporary China. Past research includes a study of service work and class inequality in urban China, published by Stanford University Press as Service Encounters: Class, Gender and the Market for Social Distinction in Urban China (2008). More recent projects examine Chinese consumer goods in North America and food safety and imported milk in China. In a current research project, funded by a SSHRC research grant, she is looking comparatively at the regulation of street commerce in China and North America, and in particular at the way Chinese cities manage and in many cases are attempting to eliminate street vending, whereas (some) North American cities are embracing “street food” and food carts as emblems of cosmopolitan urbanity.