Dr Shuk Ying Chan is a Lecturer in Political Theory in the Department of Political Science at University College London. She was awarded a PhD in Politics by the University of Princeton in 2021 and since then has made an outstanding contribution to research and teaching in political thought and to the life of our intellectual community.
Chan’s research spans an impressive range of specialisms, including international political theory; anticolonial political thought; colonialism and decolonization; democracy and equality; empire and race; self-determination; political action; and political resistance. Chan draws on these specialisms to draw multiple strands of scholarship into conversation, such as Black anti-colonialism, post-colonialism, and indigenous studies. This makes her refreshingly original – avoiding both the aridity that can characterize contemporary analytic political philosophy, and the aloofness sometimes found in the history of political thought. The ecumenical spirit undergirding Chan’s research is increasingly necessary in our fractured world.
Chan’s first monograph, Postcolonial Global Justice – published by Princeton University Press – is an excellent example of how she has creatively and productively deployed this methodology to answer pressing questions both in theory and practice. In the book, she draws on and reconstructs the normative visions and political programmes of thinkers such as Aimé Césaire, Frantz Fanon, Jawaharlal Nehru and Kwame Nkrumah, systematically connecting them to contemporary debates about global justice. She advances several historically-informed action-guiding principles that help us to assess questions of self-determination and equality in the context of global governance, international investment, and global cultural exchange. This project is based on her doctoral dissertation, which was awarded the prestigious 2022 Leo Strauss Award for best dissertation in political philosophy by the American Political Science Association. Chan is also a highly productive researcher, with a string of publishing successes in some of the very best journals in political philosophy and theory, including American Journal of Political Science, American Political Science Review, and Politics, Philosophy and Economics.
Importantly, Chan does not reserve her energies for her own advancement. Instead, she has devoted a significant amount of time and attention to the academic community. She serves on the Steering Committee of the International Political Theory Standing Group at the European Consortium for Political Research, which seeks to foster and facilitate the exchange of ideas across its members in various countries. She is also a co-founder and convenor of the London Political Theory Network, which brings together London’s political theory community for regular events. We understand that Chan is an excellent and dedicated teacher on courses such as ‘Historical Injustice and the Politics of Decolonization’, and a wonderful and inspiring colleague to work with. We are delighted to award this prize to Chan in recognition of these many contributions to our profession.
Upon receiving the prize, Dr Chan said: “I am truly honoured and grateful to receive the BIAPT Early Career Prize. I would like to thank all my mentors, friends and colleagues for their support, which helped get to this point in my career, and I am committed to paying it forward.”