Ana Maria Candela, Ph.D.

I am a historian, writer and editor based in Barcelona, Spain. Trained as a historian of Modern China with a subspecialty in historical sociology (Ph.D., UC Santa Cruz) and earlier training in philosophy, religious studies and developing world history (B.A. and M.A., College of Charleston), my research has garnered several prestigious awards, including a Social Science Research Council International Dissertation Research Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, a Chiang-ching Kuo Foundation Scholar Grant, and a residence fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Nantes, France.

My current research focuses on Chinese migrations and on the global dimensions of Chinese history and China's social transformations. I explore these themes in my current book project, Intimate Others: Peruvian Chinese Between Native Place, Nation and World, 1870s-1940s, a translocal history of Chinese migration and settlement in Peru during an era of expanding industrial capitalism, settler colonialism and nation making. My most recently published work has appeared in Critical Asian Studies, the Journal of World-Systems Research, and ​Inter-Asia Cultural Studies.

I have taught courses on the Introduction of Sociology through the lens of the Black Radical Tradition, Black Lives Matter, Settler Colonialism, Post-Socialist China, Global China, Gender and Chinese Society, Chinese Migrations, Pacific Worlds, and Nationalism, often informed by a world historical perspective.

In addition to my work as a historian, I am also writing a personal and critical reflection on the university in the era of targeted alt-right harassment and provide developmental editing services for academic writers in the humanities and social sciences.

Occasionally, I make historically and socially informed collages, using images to tell deeper stories. My work was recently exhibited at CollageWave Barcelona 2026.

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