About Me

I am currently a PhD candidate in socio-cultural anthropology at the Australian National University. My research interests include:

• Mobility, migration, and movement

• Changing modes of economic production

• Ethno-racial differentiation in Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, and Yunnan Province (China)

• Plant domestication, especially the tea plant (Camellia sinensis and its cousins)

My doctoral dissertation research asks how ethno-racial politics shape agrarian ecologies and agrarian economies in Myanmar’s northern Shan State. I am particularly interested in the groups who identify as Ta’ang (also known as Palaung or De’ang), who have been cultivating tea for centuries in the regions that currently comprise the Myanmar-China borderlands.

Alongside my dissertation I am also working on an oral history project documenting the educational exchange program between Laos and the Soviet world. Between 1975 and 1992, more than 12,000 Lao students studied in the Soviet Union and socialist Eastern Europe. Most had positive experiences, and cherish the memories of this time. Still, many witnessed the dissolution of the Soviet Union; some were disillusioned with what they found, and defected to Western Europe. This project seeks to understand what they experienced in those places, and how they reflect on those experiences now.