research

Although I am trained as an historian, I have always remained presentist when setting the stakes of my historical narratives. I am interested in using historical methodology to piece together how we, as a global society, arrived at a particular problem or certain set of crossroads.

Born out of firsthand brushes with armed conflict while living in Burma between my undergraduate and graduate studies, my research examines the entanglement of economies, environments, and violence across a vast inter-Asian system: the sweeping expanse of South, Southeast, and East Asia regulated by the two Asian monsoons.


Undated photograph (c.1910). Elephant teak workers pulling logs into Ping River, northern Thailand. Photo courtesy of the Church of Christ in Thailand Archives at Payap University, Chiang Mai.



book project
My dissertation, Flood and Timber: Mapping Climate, Commerce, and Conflict Across the Heart of Monsoon Asia, 1885 – 1975, explores how these entanglements tightened over time, from the late 19th century’s ‘high noon of colonialism’ through the mid 20th century’s postcolonial moment and the dawn of the Cold War. Rooted in a case study of the Burmese Civil War, the dissertation’s narrative is geographically centered in the forested hills of upland Burma (Myanmar) and Siam (Thailand). It is the first scholarly work based on archival sources to contextualize the conflict as part of a larger, century-long arc of violence waged for control over the inter-Asian teak trade. 

Undated photograph (c.1910). Elephant teak workers pulling logs onto river bank after journey downstream. Photo courtesy of the Church of Christ in Thailand Archives at Payap University, Chiang Mai.



Methodologically, I am interested in space as much as place. I rely on mapping to guide myself and my readers through space and time. By ‘mapping,’ I mean: the creation of my own maps via GIS and illustration software, the interpretation of historical maps found in paper archives, and the inclusion of thick narrative description. While the visuals help to flatten spatial complexity for readers unfamiliar with the region, the narrative descriptions help to orient readers towards the powerful physicality of my story. It is impossible to read a first-person account of life and war in the region without being overwhelmed by the intensity of terrain, elevation, and climate. In this way, mapping is both a core methodology, as well as part of the final dissertation product. By mapping out the inter-Asian teak industry and overlaying it with historical conflict and climate data, we see a clear pictures of the many nodes and connections of the inter-Asian teak trading system, the dual military/commercial nature of extractive infrastructure, and the ultimate fragility of that network under monsoon conditions.



You can listen to me talk about my work in more detail here:



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