Qingyun Lin is a PhD candidate in Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the Daniels Faculty. Lin’s research explores informal urbanism and the history of urban waterfront in post-1950s China, with a specific focus on how the boat people (Tanka) - the floating community historically recognized as an ethnic minority residing in the rivers, estuaries, and coastal areas in South China and Hong Kong - resisted, circumvented, or challenged top-down planning, regulations, and laws through their spontaneous spatial interventions and everyday practices across scales.

Using a combined methodology of walking interviews and archival studies, Lin's work sheds light on the moments when various sectors, including the local state, real estate companies, and governmental officials meet with the boat people in their pursuit of different agendas, such as the fight against environmental degradation, intercity economic competition, or national maritime border security, and how these entanglements, negotiations, and reconciliations shaped and reshaped the waterfront since the 1950s.

Lin received a Bachelor in Landscape Architecture from Tongji University in China, and a Master in Landscape Architecture from the Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands. Prior to pursuing doctoral studies, she worked for AECOM and UNESCO World Heritage Institute of Training and Research for the Asia and Pacific Region.

Advisor

Peter Sealy

• 2023 Urban History Association conference, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
• 2024 International Conference on Urban Affairs, New York

• Email: qingyun.lin@mail.utoronto.ca