Dr Holly High

Lecturer

Room 232, RC Mills Building A26
+61 2 9351 6682

Holly High researches and teaches the anthropology of Southeast Asia, development, agrarian spaces and health. Her early research concerned poverty and policy in rural Laos. She has written about the implementation of the World Bank poverty reduction polices, the effects of governmental decentralization, uses of the concept of "community", and the history of the Thai/Lao border. Her current research into the environmental history of Laos examines colonial, cold war, socialist and contemporary understandings of the Lao environment. In this project, forms of globalization, governmentality and legibility are understood in their intersection with local Lao landscapes, livelihoods and land use.

Book chapters:

In Press, NUS Press (published 2008)
“‘Communal” sentiments: belonging and the puutaa cult of southern Laos.” In Tai Community: Political Challenges and Ethnographic Explorations. Andrew Walker (ed).

In press with Routledge (to be published 2008)
“Dreaming beyond Borders: The Thai/Lao borderlands and the mobility of the marginal.” Southeast Asian Borderlands: Past and Present Martin Gainsborough (ed).


Refereed articles:

Accepted July 2008.
“The road to nowhere? Poverty and policy in the South of Laos”. Focaal. To be published 2009.

Accepted May 2008. To be published in November 2008.
“The implications of aspirations: reconsidering resettlement in Laos” Critical Asian Studies.

2008. La guerre segretta degli Stati Uniti d’America contro la natura. It paesaggio violent del Laos. Demetra 16. 37-48.

Published July 2007.
“Violent landscape: Global explosions and Lao life-worlds” Global Environment 1:1.

Published December 2006
“Ritualising residency: Territory cults and a sense of place in southern Lao PDR” The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology. 7:3: 251-264.

Published April 2006
“Work together, act together, for the common good, solidarity! Village formation in southern Laos” Sojourn 21 (1):22-45.


Web-published (not refereed)

“Singing history, remembering landscapes, memorializing violence” On New Mandala: New perspectives on mainland Southeast Asia January 17th, 2007

“The rich don’t go to prison, and the poor don’t go to hospital” On New Mandala: New perspectives on mainland Southeast Asia January 14th, 2007

“Violent landscape” On New Mandala: New perspectives on mainland Southeast Asia January 11th, 2007

“Classify, define, require” On New Mandala: New perspectives on mainland Southeast Asia December 19th, 2006.

“Seminar: tool of oppression or reunification?” On New Mandala: New perspectives on mainland Southeast Asia December 13th, 2006.

“Welcome to Vieng Say” On New Mandala: New perspectives on mainland Southeast Asia December 10th, 2006

“‘Black’ skin ‘white’ skin: riches and beauty in Lao women’s bodies.” Thai-Yunnan Project Bulletin 6. 7-9.

“On the border: Thai/Lao trade at Chong Mek.” ASEAN Analysis July 2003

“The king is dead, long live the king.” ASEAN Analysis. April 2003.

“New rules, same game: government and foreign investment in Lao PDR.” ASEAN Analysis. September 2002


Book reviews:

Published December 2005
Review of “Goddess on the Rise: Pilgrimage and Popular Religion in Vietnam.” Asian Studies Review. 29 (4):438-439.

Published December 2005
Review of “The Lao: gender, power, and livelihood.” Anthropology and Education Quarterly Volume 36.4

Published May 2005 Review of “Laos and Ethnic Minority Cultures: promoting heritage.” Asian Studies Review 29 (1):98-99.