I am committed to employing ethnographic methods in my research. My commitment to ethnography is as personal as it is intellectual. First, as a scholar and researcher, I think ethnography, with an intensive focus on generating in-depth understandings of people’s lived experiences, is the right method to study sociomateriality and culture. Second, as a human being, I am deeply passionate about ethnography as a way of understanding our very strange yet deeply human world. I find great satisfaction in connecting to and understanding human subjects.
Despite my relational approach in gaining access to the field site, I am also very good at maintaining a politically neutral image and “masking” my true political beliefs, which I have found very helpful when studying participants with political beliefs more conservative than mine. I am also good at seeing multiple perspectives in politics and avoiding any act of imposing my worldview on my participants.
My current research includes various sociological topics such as politics, culture, resilience, sociomateriality, relational mechanisms among immigrant rights advocates, emotional labor, and social reproduction. For my next research project, I am contemplating what it means to be human in the age of Artificial Intelligence.
UPCOMING PUBLICATION
Cao (upcoming, 2026). To the lighthouse: A journal to liberation, human connection, and hope as an ethnographer. In Towards Greater Equality in Academia: A Collective Response. Edited by Scholz & Szulc. Edward Elgar Publishing. Gloucestershire. UK.
MANUSCRIPTS IN PREPARATION
Cao & Le. First, let’s eat cake: How sociomateriality enables resilience amidst turmoil. To be submitted to Human Relations in October 2025.
Cao, Wang, & Gurrieri. Do you know my son’s favorite food?: Family as a social institution shaping emotional labor. To be submitted to Gender, Work, & Organization in December 2025.
Cao. The empathizers: Focusing on present impact as a relational mechanism among immigrant rights advocates. To be submitted to Human Relations in 2026.
Cao. Maybe don’t mention Harvard: Social reproduction processes in the translation of Bourdieu’s four forms of capital in Asian societies. To be submitted to Business and Society in 2026.