Tania Li

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Tania Li
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Alma materCambridge University
Scientific career
Thesis Cultural and economic change in the Singapore Malay community  (1986)

Tania Murray Li is a Professor of Anthropology at the University of Toronto who is known for her work on labour, capitalism, development, politics and indigeneity with a particular focus on Indonesia. She is an elected member of the Royal Society of Canada, and an Officer of the Order of Canada.

Contents

Education and career

Li has a B.A. (1981) and a Ph.D. (1987) from Cambridge University. After her Ph.D., Li moved to Dalhousie University where she initially worked on a development project in Indonesia. After post-Doctoral research on Indonesia, Li began teaching at Dalhousie University in 1992, and in 2002 was appointed professor in the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology. In 2004 she moved to the University of Toronto as Professor in the Department of Anthropology. From 2004 - 2018, Li was Canada Research Chair (Tier 1) in the Cultural and Political Economy of Asia. [1]

She was appointed to the Order of Canada in 2024, with the rank of Officer. [2]

Research

Li's early research centered on Singapore where she worked on urban politics and the Malay community. From 1986 until 1989 Li worked on an environmental management project at Dalhousie University, and in a 2017 interview she described how the goals of "knowledge transfer and institution-building" made her uncomfortable. [3]

Subsequently she worked on issues within Indonesia, particularly on the changing histories and identities of upland people as they relate in new ways to the natural resource base, to markets and to the state. [4] Still using Indonesia as the basis for her research, she wrote a critique of the international development enterprise, [5] and subsequently focused on land as the key resource governing capitalist relations among Indonesia's highland cacao farmers. [6] Her most recent work has examined the social displacement resulting from the oil plantation boom in Indonesia. [7]

Selected publications

Awards and honors

In 2015 she was named a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. [10] Li's book Land's End won the Senior Book Prize from the American Ethnological Association in 2016, [11] and the George McT. Kahin Prize from the Association for Asian Studies in 2017. [12] In 2018 she was the winner of the SSHRC Impact Award (Insight category). [13] In 2019 she was named a fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute, [14] and in 2022 she received the Ester Boserup Prize for Research on Development (Denmark). [15] In 2024, Tania Li was awarded the Killam Prize for Social Sciences, [16] and was made an Officer of the Order of Canada. [17]

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References

  1. Li, Tania (14 May 2021). "University of Toronto". University Professor.
  2. "A celebration of Canadian excellence: Governor General appoints 88 individuals to the Order of Canada". Governor General of Canada. 18 December 2024. Archived from the original on 27 December 2024. Retrieved 3 January 2025.
  3. Majumder, Atreyee (March 10, 2017). "It Can't Be Revolution: An Interview with Tania Li". Society for Cultural Anthropology. Retrieved 2022-11-25.
  4. Transforming the Indonesian uplands : marginality, power, and production. Tania Li. Singapore: Harwood Academic Publishers. 1999. ISBN   981-230-045-7. OCLC   44613347.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  5. Li, Tania Murray (2007-05-16). The Will to Improve: Governmentality, Development, and the Practice of Politics. Duke University Press. ISBN   978-0-8223-8978-1.
  6. Li, Tania Murray (2014). Land's End: Capitalist Relations on an Indigenous Frontier. Duke University Press. ISBN   978-0-8223-5694-3. JSTOR   j.ctv1131b52.
  7. Li, Tania Murray; Semedi, Pujo (2021). Plantation Life: Corporate Occupation in Indonesia's Oil Palm Zone. Duke University Press. ISBN   978-1478014959.
  8. Reviews for Land's End
  9. Reviews of Powers of Exclusion
  10. "Member Directory | The Royal Society of Canada". rsc-src.ca. Retrieved 2022-10-29.
  11. "2016 Winner: Land's End: Capitalist Relations on an Indigenous Frontier". American Ethnological Society. Retrieved 2022-10-29.
  12. "Kahin Prize". Association for Asian Studies. Retrieved 2022-10-29.
  13. "SSHRC Impact Award Winners" . Retrieved 2024-12-18.
  14. "Honorary Fellows". Royal Anthropological Institute. Retrieved 2022-10-29.
  15. "Ester Boserup Prize" . Retrieved 2024-12-18.
  16. "Killam Prize" . Retrieved 2024-12-18.
  17. "Order of Canada" . Retrieved 2024-12-19.