Nikolas Århem

Ph D Candidate, Uppsala University

MA, Visual Anthropology, Goldsmith College, University of London (2000)

MA, Cultural Anthropology, Uppsala University (1999)

Current Research

Ongoing research concerns social and cultural change among ethnic groups along the recently completed Ho Chi Minh Highway in Central Vietnam. A central concern of the project is the changing uses of forest resources – particularly changes in hunting beliefs and practices and the changing role of hunting in the local economy – as a result of the highway and the increased access to towns and markets in the region. (Vietnam is today one of the world’s biggest dealers in wildlife trade, perhaps second only to China). The project is sponsored by the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology (VME), Hanoi, and is financed by Sida/SAREC, Sweden.

Previous Experience

2006 (two months) short-term consultancy study for WWF, Vietnam

2004-6, Research Associate at VME, Hanoi (Katuic Ethnography Project)

2001-2, English teacher, Harbin, China

1999, (three months), Minor Field Study among the pastoral Fulbe (Fulani), Burkina Faso. (The study was financed by Sida/Department of Cultural Anthropology, Uppsala University).

Publications, Reports and Films

- (forthcoming), In the Sacred Forest: Hunting and Spirit beliefs among the Katu of Vietnam, SANS 10, Papers in Social Anthropology, Gothenburg University.

- 2008, “Wild and dangerous animals in Katu cosmology”, Vietnamese Studies (Hanoi), Special Issue (June 2008).

- 2006, The Socio-Cultural impact of the Ho Chi Minh Highway on the Indigenous Population in the Central Truong Son landscape of Vietnam, Consultancy Report, WWF, Vietnam.

- 2005, Land, Spirits and Hunting Cosmology among the Katu of Quang Nam, Vietnam, Unpublished report, Katuic Ethnography Project (VME).