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Faculty Profile

Highlights
These highlights are AI-generated using the faculty's CV and Google Scholar profile
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H-Index (All Time)
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George Wong is an award-winning educator and ethnographer whose research and teaching span community power, philanthropy, urban political cultures, and Southeast Asian urbanisms, with a strong commitment to impactful scholarship and public engagement.

Bridges rigorous ethnographic research with applied impact in philanthropy, urban governance, and community development; recognized for methodological innovation, leadership in research teams, and excellence in teaching; actively engages with public, policy, and industry stakeholders to translate research into practice.

Focused research areas include Examines the intersections of community development, philanthropy, and urban political cultures in Southeast Asia, with a focus on ethnographic approaches to understanding power, inclusion, and social change in urban environments.
Areas of Expertise
Community Power and DevelopmentPhilanthropy and Social ImpactUrban Political CulturesUrban Political EcologySoutheast Asian UrbanismsEthnography

George Wong is Assistant Professor of Sociology (Education) at the School of Social Sciences at the Singapore Management University, where he is the Coordinator of the Global Asia second major programme. 

His research sits at the intersection of 3Cs: Cities, Communities and Capital in Asian contexts. His works include examining community powers and development, and the role of private and public capital in making (im)possible urban regimes and everyday experiences on the ground. He is also a trained ethnographer with a decade of experience in examining state-sponsored urban community development as political legitimacy projects in Asia.  

His current research projects include a study of state-sponsored grassroots leaders in neighbourhood micro-governance, an urban political analysis of eco-urban regimes in Asian cities, and a study of private concessional capital in tri-sector community development. His works have been published in the Journal of Intercultural Studies, Anthrozoös, and Asian Studies Review. He currently teaches courses in Urban and Political Sociology, including Anthropocene Asia and Deconstructing Singapore Society, among others.

Qualifications

  • PhD in Sociology, Nanyang Technological University, 2022
  • MA in Sociology, Nanyang Technological University, 2017
  • BSocSc in Political Science & Sociology, Singapore Management University, 2014

Research Interests

  • Urban regime analysis and community power
  • State-sponsored grassroots organizations in urban governance and politics in Asia
  • Urban eco-politics
  • Philanthropic and concessional capital in urban development

Course(s) Taught in SMU

  • Big Questions
  • Understanding Societies