Thomas White is a Lecturer in China and Sustainable Development. He has a PhD and MPhil in Social Anthropology from the University of Cambridge, and a BA from the University of Oxford. He is an Affiliate of the Mongolia and Inner Asia Studies Unit at the University of Cambridge.

Thomas has previously worked at the University of Cambridge, and the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. He studied for a Diploma in Mandarin at SOAS, before living and working for several years in China. His first monograph, China's Camel Country: Livestock and Nation-Building at a Pastoral Frontier, was published in 2024. His articles have appeared in international journals such as Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, and Eurasian Geography and Economics.

Research

• China's Borderlands
• Political Ecology
• Pastoralism, Agriculture and Rural Development
• Infrastructure
• Sino-Mongolian Relations
• The Belt and Road Initiative
• Ecological Civilization

Thomas' research examines the social, economic, and ecological transformations of China's borderlands and neighbours. He is interested in the uneven spatialization of political and economic power, and in the centrality of ‘peripheries’ to projects of nation-building, state environmentalism, and transnational economic connectivity.

His current research examines emerging forms of economic interaction across the Sino-Mongolian border, particularly meat and livestock export, and their relationship to fragile local ecologies and shifting geopolitics. He is Co-Investigator on the UKRI-funded research project 'Trading Mongolia's Sovereign Meat'.

Teaching

• Environment, Sustainability, and Climate Change in China
• Infrastructure, Technology, and Power in the Age of Global China

Further details

See Thomas' research profile