Academia Sinica Logo

My name is Laur Kiik (柯朗), I am a new fellow at the Center for Asia-Pacific Area Studies (亞太區域研究專題中心), RCHSS (人文社會科學研究中心).

I explore the relations between nations and nature, or ethnicity and environment, especially amid dictatorship and war.

Since 2010, I have been doing field research in a large area where China and India meet Burma (Myanmar), a country that has been run by dozens of clashing armies since the Second World War.  These subtropical highlands are a patchwork of Christian and Buddhist peoples and ethno-nationalist movements, amid vast natural resources and exceptional biodiversity. 

Specifically, I have done research among the Kachin people, focusing on their encounters with the Burmese dictatorship and inter-ethnic conflict, a vast Chinese-led natural-resource economy (including hydropower, jade, amber, rare earths, plantations, gold, logging), and international wildlife conservation (tigers, elephants, old-growth rainforests, migratory birds, wetlands) and natural sciences (especially conservation biology and the paleontology of amber fossils).

Overall, my research shows how human oppression and nature’s demise can become so interconnected that they cannot be understood separately. Thus, I try to integrate insights from and collaborate with scholars from across the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences.

Please feel free to email me to discuss shared interests: kiik.laur@gmail.com.