Dr. Mette M. High has carried out ethnographic research in Mongolia since 2001. During work for the International Labour Organisation in the country she became involved in multilateral initiatives towards improving the health and welfare of child labourers in illegal coal mines. She later began her doctoral research on the current Mongolian gold rush and received her PhD in social anthropology from University of Cambridge in 2008. Dr. High is currently a British Academy Post-Doctoral Fellow in the department.
Her research focuses on how changing labour regimes relate to kinship and gendered hierarchies. Whilst historical accounts describe how Mongolians punished mining activities for violating taboos against digging into the land, recent post-socialist policy changes regarding land use and rising gold prices have encouraged growth in today’s booming mining sector. Based on fieldwork in the mining camps and the surrounding areas, Dr. High’s primary theoretical interest is in the significance of economic transformations for new forms of sociality and moral being.
Selected publications:
2008. Wealth and Envy in the Mongolian Gold Mines. Cambridge Anthropology 27(3) pp.1-19
2010. Dangerous Fortunes: An Anthropological Study of the Mongolian Informal Gold Mining Economy, transl. by Bum-Ochir Dulam, forewords by C. Humphrey and S. Dulam. Admon Press: Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.
with J. Schlesinger. 2010. "Rulers and Rascals: The Politics of Gold in Mongolian Qing History". Central Asian Survey 29(3): 289-304.