TAEC TALKS | 'Can You Policy'? Definitions of Policy in Laos by Holly High

What does "policy" mean in the Lao context? How do these assumptions affect how governmental policies are interpreted and implemented?
Associate Professor Holly High will discuss the meaning of "policy" in Laos, including its potential origins and misconceptions:
"Drawing on findings from research into the interactions between science and policy in Laos conducted by a team of Lao and Australian social scientists, this paper recounts our finding that one of the key terms in our research question -- policy -- was prone to misunderstanding as we translated it back and forth between English and Lao. I will argue that these difficulties of translation help us not only to appreciate the differences between English and Lao concepts, but also to see that the Lao concept can be taken as an inspiration for rethinking the role of the good in policy more broadly."
Speaker Bio: Dr. Holly High is an anthropologist and Associate Research Professor at the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation at Deakin University. She has performed fieldwork in Laos, and has held postdoctoral positions at Yale, Cambridge, and Sydney. She uses ethnographic methods and anthropological analysis to understand human experience. She has written about anthropological approaches to debt, power and desire; psychoanalytic theory and anthropology; Lao policy (including cultural, poverty, health and agricultural policies) in relation to lived experience in that country; everyday politics in Laos; emerging infectious disease as an intercultural zone; and religion in Laos. Currently, she is investigating transformations in pregnancy, birth, and early childhood in Laos.
If you would like to learn more about Dr. Holly High and her work, please visit hollyhigh.net.
You can also purchase her books through the following links and use discount code 30SPEC to receive 30% off (available through 2021).
Fields of Desire: Poverty and Policy in Laos - nuspress.nus.e...
Projectland: Life in a Lao Socialist Model Village: uhpress.hawaii...
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