Dr. Yidong Gong
Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Co-Director of Health, Cultures, and Societies
Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Co-Director of Health, Cultures, and Societies
Academic Appointments
Assistant Professor, New College of Florida
Co-Director of Health, Cultures, and Societies, New College of Florida
University of California President’s Postdoctoral Fellow, UC Irvine
Education
M.A., Ph.D., Duke University
M.Phil., University of Cambridge
B.A., Shanghai International Studies University
Yidong Gong is a medical anthropologist who studies transnational and transregional connections between South Sudan, East Africa, and China through the lenses of global health, global mental health, and One Health. He employs qualitative, ethnographic, and community-based methods, engaging with debates on humanitarian medicine, peace and conflict, the biopolitics of care, and mental health and culture. More broadly, he examines how experts and forms of expertise respond to crises—whether arising from war and conflict in South Sudan, environmental challenges in Africa, or youth mental health issues.
His first book project explores China’s long-standing medical programs in South Sudan, which challenge dominant humanitarian paradigms by offering an alternative framework for healthcare in conflict zones. The book traces how Chinese doctors navigate multiple temporalities shaped by China’s history of public health and its evolving relationship with Africa. His research has been supported by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Duke Global Health Institute, and other funding agencies. He is now developing a second project on human and animal health in Africa.
He teaches courses in medical anthropology, mental health and culture, medical humanitarianism, and the anthropology of temporality. He is a core faculty member and co-director of the interdisciplinary program Health, Culture, and Societies (HCS), which was funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. At New College, he founded Anthropology Commons, an intellectual community dedicated to expanding the boundaries of anthropology and ethnography through monthly meetings with faculty and students. He was also an inaugural fellow of the Nielsen Center for the Liberal Arts at Eckerd College.
Recent Courses
Medical Anthropology
Global Mental Health
Beyond the Body: Anthropology of Surgery
Anthropology of Medical Humanitarianism
Health, Culture, and Societies: Interdisciplinary Explorations
Professionalization Seminar for Health, Culture, and Societies (HCS)
Expert Knowledge, Design Thinking, and Posthumanism: Anthropology of Tomorrow
China, Africa, and Globalization
History of Anthropological Theory
Introduction to Cultural Anthropology
Introduction to Biological Anthropology
Recent Publications
2023. Gong, Yidong. “From ‘Medical Revolution’ to Techno-Politics: The Transformation of Chinese Medical Teams in Zanzibar.”. Global China Pulse 2, no. 1: 74-85. Special Section. “A Century of Global Medical Engagements.”
2023. Gong, Yidong. Review of Elisabeth Hsu, Chinese Medicine in East Africa: An Intimacy with Strangers (Berghahn, 2022). Medical Anthropology Quarterly. DOI: 10.1111/maq.12808.
2022. Gong, Yidong. “Non-Suffering Work: China’s Medical Interventions in South Sudan.” The China Quarterly 250: 464-85. DOI:10.1017/S0305741022000534. Special Issue. “Global China.”