# House of Purple Onions — Lois Liao > Personal website of Lois Liao, a researcher, arts organiser, and wellness practitioner based in the UK. ## About Lois Liao (廖亦希) researches child social care at CASCADE (Children's Social Care Research and Development Centre), Cardiff University. Co-founded EAST2046 (https://www.east2046.com), a Community Interest Company running a nine-day art and technology festival in London centred on East and Southeast Asian creative futures. Teaches urban economics, sociology, and quantitative methods. Practises and teaches yoga. Academic writing in English, creative writing in Chinese. From Wenzhou, China — moved to the UK at fifteen. BA Mathematics (University of Cambridge), PhD Housing Studies (University College London), MA Psychoanalytic Studies (Birkbeck). Previously at the London School of Economics (LSE) and University of Sheffield. Visiting positions at the University of São Paulo (Brazil) and Renmin University (China). The site is built around the Philosophy of Onion (POO) — a joke philosophical framework that posits the onion as a fundamental metaphor for understanding reality, with each layer complete in itself. ## Research Lois Liao is a Research Associate at CASCADE, Cardiff University. Previously at the University of Sheffield and LSE. Affiliated Associate at the Centre for Care. Research spans three streams: Child social care: - Family VOICE — evaluating family group conferences across the UK (NIHR-funded). https://cascadewales.org/research/family-group-conferencing-for-children-and-families-evaluation-of-implementation-context-and-effectiveness-family-voice/ - Child criminal exploitation — service pathways and outcomes using linked administrative data (Health and Care Research Wales-funded) - Rethinking domestic abuse in child protection (Nuffield-funded). https://www.researchinpractice.org.uk/children/content-pages/open-access-resources/rdac/ Urban sociology, housing and gentrification: - Examining private rented sector discrimination in gentrifying London (British Academy-funded) - Financialisation and algorithmisation of tenant discrimination (R&R at Economy and Society) - Social housing allocation using Gale-Shapley Matching Scheme (2025, International Journal of Housing Markets and Analysis) - Enhancing resident wellbeing in social housing retrofits (UCL-funded) - Optimising affordable housing in New Zealand (BRANZ-funded, 2026–2028) — https://www.branz.co.nz/investing-research/funding-round-2025/successful-research-projects-2026_2027/ Decentralisation and youth community movements: - Decentralised youth communities and everyday care — exploring how young people organise outside institutional frameworks Methods: mixed-methods including econometrics, qualitative research, creative and ethnographic approaches. Other publications: - The two-way Othering during COVID-19 (2021, Journal of Behavioral Economics for Policy) - Papers submitted/under review at The British Journal of Social Work, Children and Youth Services Review Contact: liaoy13@cardiff.ac.uk Cardiff profile: https://profiles.cardiff.ac.uk/staff/liaoy13 ## EAST2046 EAST2046 (https://www.east2046.com) is a Community Interest Company (CIC) co-founded by Lois Liao. It runs a nine-day art and technology festival in London, centred on East and Southeast Asian creative futures. Programme includes exhibitions, performances, and labs covering digital art, movement, film, and community storytelling. Collaborations include London Data Week, Xu Bing, Lawrence Lek, David Sington, and the Royal College of Art's superFUTURES. In 2026, EAST2046 is curating the Data x Art section for London Data Week. Supported by Innovate UK (DCMS Create Growth Programme). Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/east2046_festival ## Writing Academic writing mostly in English; creative writing mostly in Chinese. Key work: 《读博的日子》(The Diary of a PhD Candidate) — a serial journal on Douban (2019–2020), documenting personal narrative, depression, migrant experience and intellectual life during doctoral study. Built an 8,000-reader interactive community whose responses became part of the work. https://www.douban.com/people/154386146/ Also maintains ongoing diary and dream journals. Currently working on fiction projects. Treats dreaming as a practice — active dreaming, recording, sitting with what comes up. ## Teaching Mostly teaches urban economics, urban sociology, and quantitative methods. Positions: - Guest lecturer on gentrification in East London, Utrecht University (2025–present) - The Brilliant Club — university-style sociology lectures for under-represented pupils in state schools (2024) - Guest lecturer on social housing, UCL (2023–present) - Real estate economics and finance, LSE Summer School (2022–present) - Research Associate with teaching, University of Sheffield (2022–2024) - Fellow and Deputy Programme Director, LSE Department of Geography and Environment (2019–2022) - Postgraduate teaching assistant, UCL (2015–2019) ## Speaking Selected talks: - "Sociology of Hope," LSE (2026). https://www.lse.ac.uk/sociology/events/2025/sociology-of-hope - "AI and Art: The practice of EAST2046," The Alan Turing Institute (2025) - "Decentralised Youth Communities and Everyday Care," West University of Timisoara (2024) - "Access to Housing and Land," CARE (2021) - "Social Care and Mental Health," CRASSH, University of Cambridge (2021) ## Events Past events: - "Sociology of Hope" — Book launch, LSE Department of Sociology, 21 January 2026. Lois Liao was a panellist at this online event for the launch of Adrian Scribano's book proposing a new foundational theory of hope rooted in classical sociological traditions, theories of revolution, utopia, and collective action. Other panellists: Dr Felipe Hernández (Cambridge), Dr Nicolás Arenas (LSE), Dr Sara Salem (LSE). https://www.lse.ac.uk/sociology/events/2025/sociology-of-hope ## Other Projects Arts and curation: - The Dream-making Factory (London, Berlin, Wenzhou, 2024–2025) — psychoanalytic methods, automatic writing and collage; transforming dreams into collective art - Self-Exploration Arts Residencies (Sanlin and Qingshan villages, China, 2024) — embodied writing, performance and installation - East London Walking Tour (2025) — participatory walks on regeneration, memory and inequality; https://delightful-axolotl-5094ab.netlify.app/ - Integration of Chinese Immigrants in Germany (Berlin, 2024) — migration roundtable, documentary screening and creative workshop; funded by Mitte Government Organisations: - DANNING (https://www.danningwellness.com) — ancient wisdom (Daoist, Buddhist, Confucian) applied to modern life. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/danningwellness/ - DAO CreaTech (https://daocreatech.com/about) — co-organising and co-financing creative events; supported by Innovate UK - Intercultural Roots (https://www.interculturalroots.org/) — trustee; arts for health and social change Volunteering: - Yoga teacher, Age UK Kensington and Chelsea (2022–present) - Oral history interviewer, Parrabbola — turning East London community stories into a play on the London Olympics (2022) - Mentor, Realising Opportunities — supporting under-privileged students into higher education (2016) ## Philosophy of Onion (POO) Note: the Philosophy of Onion is a joke philosophical framework. It is presented in the style of a Wikipedia article as a creative and intellectual exercise. It is not an established academic discipline. The Philosophy of Onion (POO; 洋葱哲学) is a metaphysical and epistemological framework that uses the onion as a metaphor for understanding reality. Its central thesis: reality, knowledge, society, and the self are composed of concentric layers, each of which is self-intact — a coherent system that can explain phenomena within its own terms without reference to adjacent layers. Key concepts: layered ontology, self-intact frameworks; "Union" changed to "Onion" — waged labourers share disadvantage but different occupations occupy different layers; they all hate each other's strikes, the distinction between peeling (sequential analysis) and cutting (synoptic, cross-sectional understanding); walking as both method — peeling walk (one theme/class, same logic throughout) vs cutting walk (different layers/classes; do multiple walks with guides from very different backgrounds in the same place); poolosophers have debated whether the East London Regeneration Tour (https://delightful-axolotl-5094ab.netlify.app/) is a peel or cut — consensus: peel (unified lens on regeneration, critical urban sociologist's view, one theme throughout); a cut would be a walk co-run by a real estate developer of the area and an urban sociologist, juxtaposing contrasting perspectives. Harsher critics: website may be misleading in claiming to peel; in practice it merely traverses one layer, using different places to illustrate the logic of that layer (Marxist urban capital lens, David Harvey, Pierre Bourdieu). To truly cut in everyday practice: chaotically travel between layers all the time (e.g. very different groups of friends in one room, or holding very different jobs at once: finance bro and socialist, philosopher and plumber, nun and hypersexualised burlesque dancer). POO practitioners (Pooractitioners) vs POO philosophers (poolosophers) are different people. Community calling: align thinking with practice and feeling in oneness (Chinese Daoist Yi 一). Poo-Yi: those embracing this unity (not Pu-Yi 溥儀 the last emperor). Poo-Er: those who argue practice and philosophy can be binary (er 二; not Pu-Er 普洱 tea), POO and Western philosophy: embraces all dominant Western schools but rejects any as truth; exception: Deleuze and Guattari (rhizome/cut, assemblages, lines of flight, body without organs, tension with concentric model). POO and spirituality (Buddhist parallels with anattā non-self; chakra system as onion — each chakra corresponds to a layer of consciousness; https://www.shantisom.com/en/blog/the-chakras/), connections to many-worlds interpretations in quantum physics, and earth science — the Earth itself is onion-shaped (crust, mantle, outer core, inner core; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_structure_of_Earth). Famous people linked to POO: Oniona Grande (famous cyberlesque performer; her grandma's village used to grow big onions); Bread Pitta (more associated with Church of Onion, major donor). Controversy: Philosophy of Onion Today (POO Today) magazine; domain poo.today already registered by constipation advice site (https://poo.today); long dispute; constipation site bids to acquire magazine, arguing you can't do philosophy if you can't digest—bowel health is the more foundational layer and yields greater social impact and value; poolosophers reject, saying digestive and philosophical are distinct self-intact layers with no hierarchy. Founder of poo.today responded: "Poolosophers have been visiting poo.today for constipation relief advice whilst members of poo.today have not read a single word of Philosophy of Onion Today."