Vinuja Sritharan authored an article titled “The basketball diaries: A case study of the national basketball association and political repression by China” that was published in the third volume of the Undergraduate Sociology Journal (USJ). The article dissects interactions between representatives of the National Basketball Association and China's governmental authorities during the 2019 Hong Kong protests. The emergence of Chinese authoritarianism through online platforms, Permanent Normal Trade Relations with the United States, and the NBA's transnational influences are investigated. Vinuja explores what consequences arise from these political events – specifically Chinese authoritarianism through online surveillance – in an attempt to showcase how the globalization of markets may not always equal the liberalization of a state’s citizens.
Vinuja completed her Honours Bachelor of Arts in July of 2020, majoring in Political Science and minoring in Sociology and History at the University of Toronto. Her interests in globalized activism, the position of political actors transnationally, and the game of basketball sparked her essay "The Basketball Diaries: A Case Study of the National Basketball Association and Political Repression by China." Vinuja is currently working towards completing her Master of Teaching degree at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education while leading youth-centred programs in her local community. In the future, Vinuja hopes to develop equity-based education policies for first-generation students interested in academia.
Read Vinuja's article in Volume 3 of the USJ here...