Chloé emphasizes that “the ultimate goal of this project is to produce research that will be valuable in Indigenous communities’ work toward recognition and justice.”

Chloé Damon’s research centers on gender and environmental change in highland Indigenous communities in northern Thailand. While earning her bachelor’s degree at Michigan State University, Chloé discovered that there was no published work on the gendered dimensions of environmental change in Thailand’s Akha communities. Dismayed, Chloé chose to take up that work herself.

Chloé brings extensive Thai language training and years of research experience to U-M’s Southeast Asian Studies program. With the support of the Mekong Culture WELL Project, Chloé recently conducted a series of remote interviews with highland Indigenous women and activists on a mapping policy implemented by the Thai government. The policy has the potential to help Indigenous people secure land rights. Chloé also serves as a research assistant on a U-M grant project that focuses on the gendered dimensions of health and citizenship among women living and working on the Thai-Burma border.

Next, Chloé is traveling to northern Thailand to conduct field work that investigates women’s roles in forgiving livelihoods and sustaining ecologies in communities that are systematically denied citizenship, land titles, and other legal rights. Her project will shed light on the gendered division of agricultural labor in these communities and how environmental change and Thai policies have affected women and their responsibilities. Chloé emphasizes that “the ultimate goal of this project is to produce research that will be valuable in Indigenous communities’ work toward recognition and justice.”

Chloé was recently accepted to the Master of Science in Information program at U-M, and, adding a new dimension to her work, plans to collaborate with highland Indigenous groups to address their concerns regarding knowledge loss, language preservation, and archival possibilities. Chloé hopes to later earn a PhD in anthropology and serve as a professor, all while contributing to a larger shift in the academy toward reflexive scholar-activism.

CEW+ applauds Chloé’s commitment and names her a Menakka and Essel Bailey Graduate Fellow.