Tommy Tse’s research examines the intersections of media, culture, and economy in East Asia and beyond, with particular attention to cultural production, creative and platform work, and consumer culture. His work combines ethnographic methods with cultural sociology to explore how fashion, media, and creative industries shape social relations, values, and identities.

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In 2022, he was awarded a European Research Council Consolidator Grant for China Africa Fashion Power, a five-year multi-sited ethnographic project investigating fashion and cultural flows between China and Africa in the context of the Belt and Road Initiative. Alongside this flagship project, Dr. Tse has led and collaborated on numerous studies addressing topics such as precarious creative labour, digital platforms and wellbeing, youth and cultural development in the Greater Bay Area, as well as comparative studies on wardrobe practices, ethnographies of Alibaba, and the Chinese and Korean fashion systems.

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Together, these projects advance a global, decolonial perspective on cultural industries, bridging theory and practice while foregrounding South-South connections and the lived experiences of creative workers.