Degrees prior to starting this degree program:
BA in Anthropology & International Relations, University of California (Davis), 2021
Field Research Plans/History:
Kymberley “Kym” Chu is a PhD student in the Anthropology Department. In her ethnographic work, she examines a wide range of human-nonhuman primate interfaces in Peninsular Malaysia. Kym is interested in how scientific paradigms such as ecology and its behavioral research methodologies mediate social relations between her human interlocutors and the free-ranging monkeys they interact with. Acknowledging local variations in environmental stressors and the ongoing power dynamics of capitalism and colonialism, Kym analyzes how particular anthropocentric constructs of the environment are being imposed. In turn, these constructs influence how human communities culturally perceive the anthropogenic drivers of human-nonhuman animal conflict in Malaysia. By approaching environmental justice as navigating coalitional affinities, she will collaborate with involved parties such as conservationists, orchard farmers, food vendors, forest rangers, ecotourism workers, priests, plantation owners, and urban residents.
Her work has been supported by Internews Malaysia/European Union, Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies (PIIRS), Council on Science and Technology (CST), and others. Kym's previous journalistic reportage focused on the environmental histories of dispossession in Malaysia for the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. Lastly, she is a first-generation student and is happy to answer questions about graduate school for prospective applicants.
Areas of Interest:
Anthropology of Capitalism, Critical Animal Studies, Environmental Anthropology, Global Health, Science and Technology Studies, Multispecies Theory
Publications, Multimedia Projects:
Representing the ‘Pathogenic Other’ in Malaysian Porcine Worlds (in progress)
Making More-than-Human and Multispecies Theory as Praxis: An AES Reading List
Palm Oil Worlds: An Interview with Dr. Sophie Chao, American Ethnological Society (AES)
How the Media Greenwashes Industrial Pig Farming in Malaysia, Sentient Media
Buddhist Monks Fight To Protect Mountain Home, Deutsche Welle
Fishers’ Net Loss From Tourism Developments, The Ecologist
Flood Survivors Struggle to Rebuild in Malaysia, Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting
Membership/activities in graduate student events or organizations:
American Ethnological Society (AES) Editorial Intern
GRADFUTURES Social Impact Fellow at XPRIZE
IHUM Multispecies Reading Group Co-Organizer
ANT201 (Introduction to Anthropology) Preceptor
Long-Tailed Macaque Project (LTM) Collaborator
Princeton Multispecies Salon Participant
Society of Ethnobiology Reviewer