Ian Baird
Assistant Professor of Geography
Education
Ph.D., Geography, The University of British Columbia, 2008
M.A., Geography, The University of Victoria, 2003
Research Areas
My main geographical area of interest is mainland Southeast Asia, especially Laos, Cambodia and Thailand.
My research interests include:
- Political Ecology (mainly rural)
- Human-Environment Relations
- Insurgencies in mainland Southeast Asia
- Development and Postdevelopment Studies
- Postcolonial Studies
- Social Movements (in mainland Southeast Asia)
- Social Theory - Social and Spatial (Re)organization
- Hydropower Dams in the Mekong Region and Inland Fisheries
- Large-scale Economic Land Concessions/acquisitions
- Identities
- Boundaries
- Hmong Studies
- Lao Studies
- Thai Studies
- Khmer Studies
- Upland peoples in mainland Southeast Asia, including the Brao and the Hmong
19th and 20th Century History in Mainland Southeast Asia
Current Research
I am presently engaged in a number of on-going research projects, including studying:
- the political ecology of large hydropower dam development in the Mekong River Basin, with a special emphasis on fisheries issues.
- large-scale economic land concessions/acquisitions.
- the experiences of ethnic minorities between 1975-1989 in northeastern Cambodia.
- political and military conflict related to Laos after 1975.
- Hmong social networks and small-scale rubber development in Laos.
- the Hmong and the Communist Party of Thailand.
- the histories of various peoples, ethnic groups and social and political movements in Laos and northeastern Cambodia
(particularly the Brao, Hmong and the Lao Na Champassak family).
Courses Taught
Geography 930: Development and Beyond (Fall 2013)
Affiliations
Center for Southeast Asian Studies
Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies
Center for Culture, History and Environment
Land Tenure Center
Asian American Studies Program
Interdisciplinary Studies, School of Human Ecology
Selected Publications
Books
Baird, I.G. 2009. Dipterocarpus Wood Resin Tenure, Management and Trade: Practices of the Brao in Northeast Cambodia. Verlag Dr. Müller, Saarbrücken, Germany, 257 pp.
Baird, I.G. & Bruce Shoemaker 2008. People, Livelihoods and Development in the Xekong River Basin of Laos. White Lotus Press, Bangkok, 435 pp.+
Baird, I.G., Vixay Inthaphaisy, Phongsavat Kisouvannalat, Bounpheng Phylaivanh & Bounhong Mounsouphom 1999. The Fishes of Southern Lao (In Lao). Lao Community Fisheries and Dolphin Protection Project, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, Pakse, Lao PDR, 162 pp.
Claridge, Gordon F., Thanongsi Sorangkhoun & I.G. Baird 1997. Community Fisheries in Lao PDR: A Survey of Techniques and Issues. IUCN - The World Conservation Union, Vientiane, Lao PDR, 70 pp.
Haggan, Nigel, Barbara Neis & I.G. Baird (eds.) 2007.Fishers’ Knowledge in Fisheries Science and Management. Coastal Management Sourcebooks Series, UNESCO, Paris, 437 pp.
Shoemaker, Bruce, I.G. Baird & Monsiri Baird 2001. The People and Their River: A Survey of River-based Livelihoods in the Xe Bang Fai River Basin in Central Lao PDR. Lao PDR/Canada Fund for Local Initiatives, Vientiane, Lao PDR, 79 pp.
REFEREED PUBLICATIONS:
Journal Articles
Baird, I.G. 2013 (Forthcoming). The global land grab meta-narrative, Asian money laundering and elite capture: Reconsidering the Cambodian context. Geopolitics.
Baird, I.G. & Peter J. Hammer 2013 (Forthcoming). Experiments, ethics and epistemology in the construction of international health policy: Knowledge and vulnerability in indigenous Cambodia. South East Asia Research (scheduled for publication in September 2013).
Ziegler, Alan D., Trevor N. Petney, Carl Grundy-Warr, Ross H. Andrews, I.G. Baird, Robert J. Wasson, & Paiboon Sithithaworn 2013 (Forthcoming). Dams and disease triggers on the Lower Mekong River. PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases.
Baird, I.G. 2013 (Forthcoming). Principled engagement: Obstacles and opportunities in an increasingly consultancy dominated world. ACME: An International E-Journal for Critical Geographers.
Baird, I.G. 2013 (Forthcoming). Millenarian movements in southern Laos and northeastern Siam (Thailand) at the turn of the twentieth century: Reconsidering the involvement of the Champassak Royal House. South East Asia Research (scheduled for publication in June 2013).
Baird, I.G. 2013. The monks and the Hmong: The special relationship between the Chao Fa and the Tham Krabok Buddhist Temple in Saraburi Province, Thailand. Pages 120-151 In Vladimir Tikhonov and Torkel Brekke (eds.), Violent Buddhism – Buddhism and Militarism in Asia in the Twentieth Century. Routledge, London.
Baird, I.G. 2012. Lao Buddhist monks and their involvement in political and militant resistance to the Lao People’s Democratic Republic government since 1975. Journal of Asian Studies 71(3): 655-677.
Baird, I.G. & Philippe Le Billon 2012. Landscapes of political memories: War legacies and land negotiations in Laos. Political Geography 31(5): 290-300.
Baird, I.G. 2011. Turning land into capital, turning people into labour: Primitive accumulation and the arrival of large-scale economic land concessions in Laos. New Proposals: Journal of Marxism and Interdisciplinary Inquiry 5(1): 10-26.
Baird, I.G. 2011. The Don Sahong Dam: Potential impacts on regional fish migrations, livelihoods and human health. Critical Asian Studies 43(2): 211-235.
Baird, I.G. 2011. Questioning the precolonial, colonial and postcolonial in the context of the Brao in southern Laos and northeastern Cambodia. ACME: An International E-Journal for Critical Geographers 10(1): 48-57.
Baird, I.G. & Noah Quastel 2011. Dolphin-safe tuna from California to Thailand: Localisms in environmental certification of global commodity networks. Annals of the Association of the American Geographers 101(2): 337-355.
Baird, I.G. 2010. The Hmong come to southern Laos: Local responses and the creation of racialized boundaries. Hmong Studies Journal 11: 1-38.
Baird, I.G. 2010. The US Central Intelligence Agency and the Brao: The story of Kong My, a non-Communist space in Attapeu Provinec, southern Laos. Aseanie 25: 23-51.
Baird, I.G. 2010. Different views of history: Shades of irredentism along the Laos-Cambodia border. Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 41(2): 187-213.
Baird, I.G. 2010. Making space: The ethnic Brao and the international border between Laos and Cambodia. Geoforum 41(2): 271-281.
Baird, I.G. 2010. Land, rubber and people: Rapid agrarian change and responses in southern Laos. Journal of Lao Studies 1(1): 1-47.
Baird, I.G. 2009. Spatial (re)organization and places of the Brao in southern Laos and northeastern Cambodia. Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography 30: 299-312.
Baird, I.G. 2009. From Champasak to Cambodia: Chao Thammatheva, a wily and influential ethnic Lao leader. Aseanie 23: 31-62.
Baird, I.G. 2009. Identities and space: The geographies of religious change amongst the Brao in northeastern Cambodia. Anthropos Redaktion 104(2): 457-468.
Baird, I.G. 2009. Various forms of colonialism: The social and spatial re-organisation of the Brao in southern Laos and northeastern Cambodia, Completed at Department of Geography, Faculty of Graduate Studies, University of British Columbia, February 2008 (abstract published). Recently completed doctorates in social and cultural geography. Social & Cultural Geography 10(3): 399.
Baird, I.G., Keith Barney, Peter Vandergeest & Bruce Shoemaker 2009. Internal resettlement in Laos. The implications of reading too much into aspirations: More explorations of the space between coerced and voluntary resettlement in Laos. Critical Asian Studies 41(4): 605-614 (rejoinder by Holly High 41(4): 615-620.)
Hogan, Zeb, Baird, I.G. & Tach Phanara 2009. Threatened fishes of the world: Probabus jullieni Sauvage 1880 (Cypriniformes: Cyprinidae). Environmental Biology of Fishes 84(3): 291-292.
Keller, Charles, Jacqueline Jordi, Ken Gregerson &Baird, I.G. 2008. The Brao dialects of Cambodia: Lexical and phonological variations. Revue de l’Institut de la Langue Nationale de l’Académie Royale du Cambodge. Institute of Language, Phnom Penh, Special Issue, July 2008: 87-152.
Baird, I.G.2007. Contested history, ethnicity and remembering the past: The case of the Ay Sa rebellion in southern Laos. Crossroads: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 18(2): 119-159.
Baird, I.G.2007. Fishes and forests: the importance of seasonally flooded riverine habitat for Mekong River fish species. Natural History Bulletin of the Siam Society 55(1): 121-148.
Baird, I.G. & Bruce P. Shoemaker 2007. Unsettling experiences: Internal resettlement and international aid agencies in the Lao PDR. Development and Change 38(5): 865-888.
Hogan, Zeb, Baird, I.G., Richard Radtke & M. Jake Vander Zanden 2007. Long distance migration and marine habitation in the Asian catfish, Pangasius krempfi. Journal of Fish Biology 71: 818-832.
Wyatt, Andrew B. & Baird, I.G. 2007. Transboundary impact assessment in the Sesan River Basin: The case of the Yali Falls Dam. International Journal of Water Resources Development 23(3): 427-442.
Baird, I.G. 2006. Probarbus jullieni and Probarbus labeamajor: The management and conservation of two of the largest fish species in the Mekong River in southern Laos. Aquatic Conservation: Freshwater and Marine Ecosystems 16(5): 517-532.
Baird, I.G. 2006. Strength in diversity: Fish sanctuaries and deep-water pools in Laos. Fisheries Management and Ecology 13(1): 1-8.
Baird, I.G.2006. Conducting rapid biology-based assessments using local ecological knowledge. Natural History Bulletin of the Siam Society 54(2): 167-175.
Baird, I.G. & Isabel L. Beasley 2005. Irrawaddy dolphins (Orcaella brevirostris) in the Mekong River in Cambodia: An initial survey. Oryx 39(3): 301-310.
Baird, I.G. & Mark S. Flaherty 2005. Mekong River fish conservation zones in southern Laos: Assessing effectiveness using local ecological knowledge. Environmental Management 36(3): 439-454.
Graduate Students
PhD
Pao Vue (current, Geography)
David Chambers (current, Geography)
Peter Swift (current, Geography)
Masters
Will Shattuck (current, Geography)
William Nathan Green (current, Southeast Asian Studies)
Nicholas Zeller (current, Southeast Asian Studies)
Aurore Phenow (current, Southeast Asian Studies)
Peter Swift (completed 2013, Geography)
Noi Sinouthasy (completed 2013, Southeast Asian Studies)
David Chambers (completed 2013, Southeast Asian Studies)
Inthava Borihane (completed 2013, Southeast Asian Studies)
Other Activities
Main faculty for UW-Madison in Hmong Studies Consortium (in collaboration with University of Minnesota-Twin Cities)
http://hmongstudies.wisc.edu/index.htm
Contact Information
Mailing Address:
Department of Geography
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Room 455, Science Hall
550 North Park Street
Madison, Wisconsin
USA 53706
Phone: 608-265-0012
Fax: 608-265-3991