PhD, Anthropology, University of Virginia

Specialties

Comparative Studies in Austronesian and Oceanian Cultures, Micronesian ethnography, hierarchy, kinship

My PhD research has examined the historical and cultural roots of Yapese people’s responses to a large Chinese tourism development—a unique case of a Pacific island in the milieu of rapidly shifting geopolitics. Currently my research interests include comparative Austronesian studies between the indigenous peoples in Taiwan and Micronesia, with a special focus on symbolism, cultural forms, and futurity. I will look into the stratified contour of knowledge and affect in hierarchical societies, various measures of the Chinese expansion in the Pacific, and the political and ontological relevance of the Yapese “alterity of worlding.” As well as those listed above, I also plan to investigate the contribution of philosophy to relativize anthropological knowledge.