Staff profile

Social purpose is at the heart of my scholarly practice. My work is driven by a desire to inspire change through research, writing, and education. Broadly speaking, I am interested in people, movements, and regenerative practices that promote meaningful living and planetary wellbeing. My work spans multiple sites in Greater China, with sustained engagement across mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan.

My first project (the basis of my forthcoming book) is an ethnographic study of "green living" in Hong Kong—an environmental and cultural movement that encompasses a wide range of activities, including permaculture and sustainable farming, freeganism and freecycling, zero waste initiatives, spiritual ecology, and more. By examining how environmentalists and ordinary people in Hong Kong embody a greener and more ethical society by “living the change that they want to see," I show that their "prefigurative politics" is rooted in traditional Chinese thought rather than in lineages of anarchism and Marxism as is often the case in the Global North.

Building on my interest in agency and environmental movements, my second project focused on how Chinese people lived with toxic pollution by bargaining with their toxic heritage and coping through unnoticing. While these strategies highlight the lack of solidarity in the face of environmental injustice, they also foreground the creative and life-affirming ways people in the Global South adapt to the Anthropocene. (This research was part of the ERC-funded project 'Toxic Expertise: Environmental Justice and the Global Petrochemical Industry,' Grant Agreement No. 639583).

In addition to my work on environmentalism, I have a sustained interest in health, healing, ethnomedicine, medical pluralism, and medical education. I have researched how colonial legacies shape the research and writing of Macau's medical histories, how these histories are leveraged to serve contemporary political agendas, as well as nationalism and the legitimacy of Traditional Chinese Medicine in postcolonial Macau.

My current research examines how diverse social, ecological, and spiritual practices help support healing, regeneration, and social justice. Through this work, I hope to foster more inclusive, just, and sustainable pathways to holistic wellbeing, while also expanding our understanding of restoration, repair, and resilience. I currently co-lead the Spirituality, Health and Wellbeing research theme at the Institute of Medical Humanities at Durham University.

At Durham, I teach modules on the Anthropocene, Critical Global Health, Planetary Health, and Social Movements in the Department of Anthropology. I was a finalist for two teaching awards in 2024: "Outstanding Contribution to Teaching and Learning" and "Inspirational Educator." In 2025, I was elected as a RE:PLAY Fellow. RE:PLAY is a three-year ESRC-funded project that aims to explore how playful approaches to teaching and learning are currently being used in UK higher education.

I received my DPhil in Anthropology from the University of Oxford and was awarded a Landhaus Fellowship at the Rachel Carson Center in Germany in 2023. Prior to Durham, I had worked at the University of Macau and Warwick University.

 

• Everyday Activism and Prefigurative Politics

• Environmentalism and Green Living Movements

• Justice, Freedom, and Relationality in Contemporary China

• Health and Wellbeing

• Integrative Medicine, Healthcare, and Healing
• Mental Health

• Anthropology and Medical Education

• Religion and Spirituality, especially Buddhism

• Self-care and Self-cultivation

• East Asia, Southeast Asia, China, and Sinophone Societies

• 2024: Fellow, Centre for Contemporary Chinese Studies:
• 2023: Fellow, Institute for Medical Humanities:
• 2023: Landhaus Fellow & Society of Fellows, Rachel Carson Center, LMU München, Germany:
• 2020: Board member, Sci-Tech Asia:
• 2018: Lay Examiner (MRCOG Part 3), Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists:

Book review

• 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.
  
  Lou, L. I. T. (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. China Quarterly, 233. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0305741018000292
• Review of "Green Politics in China: Environmental Governance and State–Society Relations", by Joy Y. Zhang and Michael Barr. London: Pluto Press, 2013.
  
  Lou, L. I. (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 = Chung-Kuo Yen Chiu., 72. https://doi.org/10.1086/677088

Chapter in book

• Nationalism and the Legitimacy of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Macau: Colonial Legacy and Contemporary Imaginaries
  
  Lou, L. I. T. (2025). Nationalism and the Legitimacy of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Macau: Colonial Legacy and Contemporary Imaginaries. In I. Gaitanidis, L. F. B. Junqueira, A. Morrow, & S. Han (Eds.), Therapy, Spirituality, and East Asian Imaginaries (pp. 277-298). Amsterdam University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/jj.25136991.21
• Preservation by Demolition: Toxic Heritage in Contemporary China
  
  Lou, L. I. (2023). Preservation by Demolition: Toxic Heritage in Contemporary China. In E. Kryder-Reid & S. May (Eds.), Toxic Heritage: Legacies, Futures, and Environmental Injustice (pp. 174-198). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003365259-20
• From Hygienic Modernity to Green Modernity: Two Modes of Modern Living in Hong Kong Since the 1970s
  
  Lou, L. I. (2022). From Hygienic Modernity to Green Modernity: Two Modes of Modern Living in Hong Kong Since the 1970s. In Y. Lee & M. Rajguru (Eds.), Design and Modernity in Asia: National Identity And Transnational Exchange 1945–1990 (pp. 105-120). Bloomsbury. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350091498.ch-6

Journal Article

• When sociality fails to produce solidarity: environmental NGOs and the politics of public engagement in contemporary China
  
  Lou, L. I. T., & Lora-Wainwright, A. L. (2025). When sociality fails to produce solidarity: environmental NGOs and the politics of public engagement in contemporary China. BioSocieties. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41292-025-00358-1
• Healing Nature: Spiritual Ecology, Self-Cultivation, and Social Transformation in Hong Kong
  
  Lou, L. I. T. (2023). Healing Nature: Spiritual Ecology, Self-Cultivation, and Social Transformation in Hong Kong. Worldviews: Global Religions, Culture, and Ecology, 27, 189–209. https://doi.org/10.1163/15685357-02703004
• The art of unnoticing: Risk perception and contrived ignorance in China
  
  Lou, L. I. T. (2022). The art of unnoticing: Risk perception and contrived ignorance in China. American Ethnologist, 49(4), 580-594. https://doi.org/10.1111/amet.13099
• Casino capitalism in the era of COVID-19: examining Macau’s pandemic response
  
  Lou, L. (2021). Casino capitalism in the era of COVID-19: examining Macau’s pandemic response. Social Transformations in Chinese Societies, 17(2), 69-79. https://doi.org/10.1108/stics-09-2020-0025
• Bullshit Jobs: A Conversation with David Graeber
  
  Graeber, D., & Lou, L. I. T. (2019). Bullshit Jobs: A Conversation with David Graeber. Made in China Journal, 4(2). https://doi.org/10.22459/mic.04.02.2019.19
• The Struggle for Sustainable Waste Management in Hong Kong: 1950s–2010s
  
  Fabian, N., & Lou, L. I. T. (2019). The Struggle for Sustainable Waste Management in Hong Kong: 1950s–2010s. Worldwide Waste: Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies, 2(1). https://doi.org/10.5334/wwwj.40
• Freedom as ethical practices: on the possibility of freedom through freeganism and freecycling in Hong Kong
  
  Lou, L. I. T. (2019). Freedom as ethical practices: on the possibility of freedom through freeganism and freecycling in Hong Kong. Asian Anthropology, 18(4), 249-265. https://doi.org/10.1080/1683478x.2019.1633728
• In the Absence of a Peasantry, What, Then, Is a Hong Kong Farmer?
  
  Lou, L. I. T. (2017). In the Absence of a Peasantry, What, Then, Is a Hong Kong Farmer? Made in China Journal, 2(4). https://doi.org/10.22459/mic.02.04.2017.10
• The Material Culture of Green Living in Hong Kong
  
  Lou, L. I. T. (2017). The Material Culture of Green Living in Hong Kong. Anthropology Now, 9(1). https://doi.org/10.1080/19428200.2017.1291055