Ken MacLean, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of International Development and Social Change
Department of International Development, Community, and Environment
Clark University
950 Main St
Worcester, MA 01610
Email: kmaclean@clarku.edu
Education
Ph.D. Anthropology, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor (2005)
M.S. School of Natural Resources and Environment, U. Michigan-Ann Arbor (2004)
B.A. Anthropology, Princeton University (1990)
Research Interests
Topics: States and State-effects, Political Violence, Extractive Industries, Displacement and Irregular Migration, Critical Humanitarianism, (Late and Post-) Socialism, Legal Regimes, Science and Technology Studies, and Comparative Cartographies
Region: Mainland Southeast Asia and the Greater South China Sea
Biography
KEN MACLEAN is an Associate Professor of International Development and Social Change, the current Coordinator for the IDSC Undergraduate Program, and the Director of Asian Studies. He holds degrees in Ph.D. in Anthropology (University of Michigan 2005); M.S. in Environment Justice (School of Natural Resources and the Environment, University of Michigan 2004), B.A. in Anthropology (Princeton University, 1990). Before coming to Clark University, he was a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Institute for Comparative and International Studies (Emory University, 2005-2007).
MacLean conducts research in mainland Southeast Asia (primarily Vietnam and Burma) as well as the greater South China Sea. His current topical interests include ethnographic approaches to the study of: States and State-Effects, Violence and Repression, Forced and Irregular Migration, (Post-) Socialism, Legal Regimes and Documentation, Critical Security Studies, and Digital Communicate Technologies.
Selected Publications
2012 “Enacting Anti-Corruption: The Reconfiguration of Audit Regimes in Contemporary Vietnam,” positions: asia critique 20(2):595-625.
2012 “Lawfare and Impunity in Burma since the 2000 Ban on Forced Labor,” Asian Studies Review June (36):189-206.
2010 “The Collected Works of the Communist Party: The Possibilities and Limits of Official Representations of Actually Existing Government,” Journal of Vietnamese Studies 5(2):195-207 [Invited Contribution for a Special Forum edited by Tuong Vu].
2010 “The Emergence of Private Indirect Government in Burma.” In Finding Dollars, Sense, and Legitimacy in Burma, ed. Susan Levenstein, pp. 40-53 (Washington D.C.: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars).
2008“In Search of Kilometer Zero: Digital Archives, Technological Revisionism, and the Sino-Vietnamese Border,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 50(4):862-894.
2008 “The Rehabilitation of an Uncomfortable Past: Remembering the Everyday in Vietnam during the Subsidy Period (1975-1986),” History and Anthropology 19(3):281-303.
2008“Sovereignty after the Entrepreneurial Turn: Mosaics of Control, Commodified Spaces, and Regulated Violence in Contemporary Burma,” in Taking Southeast Asia to Market: Commodities, Nature, and People in a Neoliberal Age, eds., Nancy Peluso and Joe Nevins, pp. 140-157 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press).
2007“Manifest Socialism: The Labor of Representation in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (1956-1959),” Journal of Vietnamese Studies 2(1):27-79.
2007“Spaces of Extraction: Actually Existing Governance along the Riverine Networks of Nyaunglebin District,” in Myanmar: the State, Community and the Environment, eds. Monique Skidmore and Trevor Wilson, pp. 246-267 (Canberra: Asia-Pacific Press, Australian National University).
2004“Reconfiguring the Debate on Engagement: Burma and the Changing Politics of Aid,” Critical Asian Studies 36(3):323-54.
2000“Constructing Civil Society: Assessing Participatory Development in Contemporary Vietnam.” In Globalization and the Asian Economic Crisis: Indigenous Responses, Coping Strategies and Governance Reform in Southeast Asia), ed. Geoffrey Hainsworth, pp. 473-483 (Vancouver: University of British Columbia).
Forthcoming
“Bodies in Perpetual Motion: Struggles over the Meaning, Value, and Purpose of Fuzzy Labor on the Eve of Collectivization,” in State, Society, and Market in Contemporary Vietnam: Property, Power, and Values, eds. Hue-Tam Ho Tai and Mark Selden, pp. 33-54 (London: Routledge).
“The Enterprising Cadre (Cán B? Dáng Làm)” in Figures of Southeast Asian Modernity: Vietnam, eds., Erik Harms, Joshua Barker, and Johan Lindquist (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press).
Selected Conference and Workshop Presentations
2012“Tactical Aid: Cross-Border Humanitarian Assistance to Internally Displaced Persons in Burma’s Conflict Zones,” States and Risk Workshop on Engaged Scholarship, Emory University.
2012“Digital P2012“Tactical Aid: Cross-Border Humanitarian Assistance to Internally Displaced Persons in Burma’s Conflict Zones,” States and Risk Workshop on Engaged Scholarship, Emory University.
2012“Digital Patriots: Hacking in Defense of the Vietnamese Nation,” Center for Southeast Asian Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
2011“Spheres of Influence: Calculating Corporate Accountability in Burma,” Executive Session at the Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association.
2011“Patriotism with Vietnamese Characteristics: A Genealogy of an Idea and its Effects,” Workshop on Rethinking Revolution in Vietnam, U.C.-Berkeley.
2011“Digital Patriots: Hacking in Defense of the Vietnamese Nation,” Kahin Center for Advanced Research on Southeast Asia, Cornell University.
2011“The Counter-Revolution that Never Came: The Illegibility of Sabotage in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (1954-1958), Colloquium Program for Agrarian Studies, Yale University.
2011“The Politics of Protection: The Possibilities and Limits of Humanitarian Action," International Summit on Armed Conflict, Scarce Resources and Congo, Clark University.
2010“The Cultural Politics of Lines: Performing Sovereignty in the Greater South China Sea,” Asian Connections II, National University of Singapore and the Social Science Research Council.atriots: Hacking in Defense of the Vietnamese Nation,” Center for Southeast Asian Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
2011“Spheres of Influence: Calculating Corporate Accountability in Burma,” Executive Session at the Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association.
2011“Patriotism with Vietnamese Characteristics: A Genealogy of an Idea and its Effects,” Workshop on Rethinking Revolution in Vietnam, U.C.-Berkeley.
2011“Digital Patriots: Hacking in Defense of the Vietnamese Nation,” Kahin Center for Advanced Research on Southeast Asia, Cornell University.
2011“The Counter-Revolution that Never Came: The Illegibility of Sabotage in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (1954-1958), Colloquium Program for Agrarian Studies, Yale University.
2011“The Politics of Protection: The Possibilities and Limits of Humanitarian Action," International Summit on Armed Conflict, Scarce Resources and Congo, Clark University.
2010“The Cultural Politics of Lines: Performing Sovereignty in the Greater South China Sea,” Asian Connections II, National University of Singapore and the Social Science Research Council.