Tania Li
Tania Li, Ph.D. (Cambridge University, 1987)
Professor, St. George Campus and Canada Research Chair in the Political-Economy and Culture of Asia
(416) 978-8145
Office: AP 424
Field: Economic anthropology, development and gender, theory, cultural studies; South East Asia
Research Interests
Dr. Li's early research in Southeast Asia concerned urban cultural politics in Singapore. Since 1990, her research has focused on questions of culture, economy, environment, and development in Indonesia’s upland regions. She has written about the rise of Indonesia’s indigenous peoples’ movement, land reform, rural class formation, struggles over the forests and conservation, community resource management, and state-organized resettlement. She recently published The Will to Improve: Governmentality, Development, and the Practice of Politics (Duke University Press, 2007). The book explores governmentality in its colonial and contemporary iterations, tracking interventions devised by experts to improve landscapes and livelihoods in Indonesia. It includes programs of Dutch missionaries, New Order officials, the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank, the Nature Conservancy, and Indonesian NGOs.
Tania Li's most recent book:
Powers of Exclusion: Land Dilemmas in Southeast Asia. With D. Hall and P. Hirsch. National University of Singapore Press/University of Hawaii Press
Click here to view the flyer for Powers of Exclusion. Click here to read a review by Keith Barney.
Recent Keynote Lectures/Podcasts
October 17-19, 2012. Tania Li on Large-Scale Land Acquisitions and Plantation Agriculture, interview at the 2nd International Conference on Land Grabbing, Cornell University (Click here to view video)
October 17-19, 2012. Tania Li speaking at the 'big questions' panel at Global Land Grabbing II Conference (Click here to view video)
April 6, 2011 Plenary Panel, International Conference on Global Land Grabbing (View YouTube Video)
February, 2010 CCIG Keynote Lecture. "To Make Live or Let Die" (View YouTube Video)
February 5, 2010 Anthropology Seminar: Indigenous Capitalism in Upland Indonesia. (Click here to download audio podcast)
Click on the below links for further information on Professor Tania Li:
Transforming Southeast Asia: Dissertation Workshop, October 16-18, 2011
