Staff profile

I am a sociocultural anthropologist specialises in the study of environment, health, activism, and self-development in East Asia. My first project is an ethnographic study of green living and its implications for individuals, society, and activism in postcolonial Hong Kong.

Building on my interest in environmental activism in East Asia, my second research, funded by the ERC project titled 'Toxic Expertise: Environmental Justice and the Global Petrochemical Industry', focuses on the ways mainland Chinese people negotiate and make sense of toxic pollution, their perceptions of (environmental) injustice, and how they cope with contrived ignorance.

My more recent research is concerned with various modalities of healing, therapeutic interventions, and self-development, mostly in non-clinical settings. I have explored ways of healing in the "Body, Mind, Spirituality" (san sam ling) circle in Hong Kong; online coaching for intimacy and interpersonal issues in China; and am looking into the rise of climate change coaches in Europe and the U.S.A. In exploring various modalities of healing, I hope to identify, first and foremost, what healing is and how we heal in today's world. Second, the interconnection between self-transformation and social transformation, and the implications of healing for wellbeing and social justice.

Underpinning all of my research are questions revolve around the interplay between agency and freedom; acceptance and resistance; dependency and in(ter)dependency, and the production of knowledge and ignorance in the most mundane forms in people’s everyday life. 

Prior to Durham, I was Assistant Professor at the University of Macau and held Postdoctoral and Visiting Fellowships at Warwick, Oxford, and the LSE. I am also a Landhaus Fellow at the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society in Munich, Germany.

I welcome enquiries from prospective PhD students working in the intersection of social, environmental, and medical anthropology; and from authors interested in the journal and the book series that I edit. 

• Environment and sustainability
• Health & wellbeing
• Planetary health
• Green politics and philosophy
• Social movements
• Therapy and healing
• Relatedness and (inter)dependence
• Agency and freedom
• Production of knowledge and ignorance
• East Asia (China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan)

• 2023: Landhaus Fellow, Rachel Carson Center, LMU München, Germany:
• 2022: Joint Editor-in-Chief of Worldwide Waste: Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies:
• 2018: Co-chair of Sci-tech Asia:
• 2018: Lay Examiner (MRCOG Part 3), Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists:
• 2017: Co-editor of Toxic News:
• 2016: Editor in Asian Studies, Amsterdam University Press:

Book review

• Lou, Loretta Ieng Tak (2018). Review of Transforming Patriarchy: Chinese Families in the Twenty-First Century Edited by Gonçalo Santos and Stevan Harrell. Seattle, WA, and London: University of Washington Press, 2016. The China Quarterly 233: 258.
• Lou, Loretta Iengtak (2014). Review of "Green Politics in China: Environmental Governance and State–Society Relations", by Joy Y. Zhang and Michael Barr. London: Pluto Press, 2013. The China Journal 72: 176.

Chapter in book

• Lou, Loretta I.T. (2023). Preservation by Demolition: Toxic Heritage in Contemporary China. In Toxic Heritage: Legacies, Futures, and Environmental Injustice. Kryder-Reid, Elizabeth & May, Sarah London: Routledge. 174-198.
• Lou, Loretta I. T. (2022). From Hygienic Modernity to Green Modernity: Two Modes of Modern Living in Hong Kong Since the 1970s. In Design and Modernity in Asia: National Identity And Transnational Exchange 1945–1990. Lee, Yunah. & Rajguru, Megha. Bloomsbury. 105-120.

Journal Article

• Lou, Loretta Ieng Tak (2022). The art of unnoticing: Risk perception and contrived ignorance in China. American Ethnologist 49(4): 580-594.
• Lou, Loretta (2021). Casino capitalism in the era of COVID-19: examining Macau’s pandemic response. Social Transformations in Chinese Societies 17(2): 69.
• Fabian, Nele & Lou, Loretta Ieng Tak (2019). The Struggle for Sustainable Waste Management in Hong Kong: 1950s–2010s. Worldwide Waste: Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies 2(1).
• Graeber, David & Lou, Loretta Ieng Tak (2019). Bullshit Jobs: A Conversation with David Graeber. Made in China Journal 4(2).
• Lou, Loretta Ieng Tak (2019). Freedom as ethical practices: on the possibility of freedom through freeganism and freecycling in Hong Kong. Asian Anthropology 18(4): 249.
• Lou, Loretta Ieng Tak (2017). The Material Culture of Green Living in Hong Kong. Anthropology Now 9(1): 70.
• Lou, Loretta Ieng Tak (2017). In the Absence of a Peasantry, What, Then, Is a Hong Kong Farmer? Made in China Journal 2(4).