Dr Loretta Ieng-Tak Lou

Associate Professor in Modern Chinese Studies, Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies

I am an anthropologist whose research revolves around the moral landscapes of Chinese societies. Across my work on social movements, green and sustainable living, environmental politics, health, healing, and medicine, I examine how people embody ethical commitments, cultivate virtues, take responsibility, and negotiate moral dilemmas within particular social and institutional milieus.

What unites these projects is an enduring interest in world-building through self-cultivation: when can transforming the self become a means of transforming the world, and what are the limits of such projects? I am especially interested in what happens when ethical ideals encounter competing obligations and structural constraints, and when demands for self-transformation and personal responsibility risk individualising problems that are fundamentally social, political, or institutional.

I received my DPhil in Anthropology from the University of Oxford. Before returning to Oxford, I taught Climate Change and the Anthropocene, Planetary Health, Critical Global Health, and Social Movements at Durham University.

More information on Loretta's page on the AMES website.