External Research Associate
Research and Mentoring Fellow, Inya Institute
Research Keywords:
Political ecology; rural livelihood change; resource frontiers; deforestation and forest degradation; conflict resolution
Research Region(s):
Burma/Myanmar, South Asia, Southeast Asia
Research Diaspora(s):
Dr. Roberts is a political ecologist with expertise in rural agrarian change and resource frontiers in the uplands of South and Southeast Asia. Currently a research and mentoring fellow with Inya Institute, Roberts holds a PhD in Human Geography, a MSc in International Conservation and Development, and a BSc in Environmental Studies. For the last 20 years, Roberts has lived and worked in urban and rural spaces of mainland Southeast Asia and North America, collaborating with development practitioners, students and researchers from across the South and Southeast Asian diaspora on the socio-political intersections of environmental degradation and community development. Spanning the physical and social sciences, Roberts has presented as geography, Asian studies, borderlands, feminist geography, agricultural, engineering, and history conferences and published in Asian studies, geography and geopolitics journals.
Select Publications
Sarma, J., Faxon, H., & Roberts, K.B.. (2022). Remaking the Resource Frontier—Myanmar and Beyond. Geopolitics 28(1), 1–22.
Roberts, K.B. & Mai. (2021). Everyday violence: Tigyit coal mine and coal-fired power plant in Shan State, Myanmar. Geoforum 124, 392–399. DOI:10.1016/j.geoforum.2021.03.002
Roberts, K. (2016). It takes a ‘rooted’ village: Networked resistance, connected communities, and adaptive response to forest tenure reform in northern Thailand. Austrian Journal of South-east Asian Studies 9(1), 53–68.
Roberts, K.B. (forthcoming). Shifting cultivation creating social-ecological resilience against climate and political uncertainty in Myanmar. In M. Cairns (Ed.), Farmer innovations and best practices by shifting cultivators in Asia-Pacific. New York, NY: Earthscan from Routledge.