The Agrarian Studies Colloquium presents
Sophie Chao, author of In the Shadow of the Palms: More-Than-Human Becomings in West Papua and co-editor of The Promise of Multispecies Justice:
“Skinship, scarship: Multispecies vulnerabilities and plantation violence in West Papua.”
Sophie Chao is of Sino-French heritage and lives on unceded Gadigal lands in Australia. Her research investigates the intersections of Indigeneity, ecology, capitalism, health, and justice in the Pacific, with a particular ethnographic focus on the Indonesian-occupied region of West Papua.
Chao’s current research examines Indigenous experiences and theories of hunger in West Papua and wildlife-human entanglements in settler Australia. At the University of Sydney, Chao is co-lead of the Sydney Environment Institute’s Biocultural Diversities Research Theme and Executive Committee Member of the Sydney Southeast Asian Centre. She previously worked for the human rights organization Forest Peoples Programme in Indonesia, supporting the rights of forest-dwelling Indigenous peoples to their customary lands, resources, and livelihoods.