Bio

Nicholas Loubere is a contemporary Sinologist and a Development Studies scholar interested in the political economy of local socio-economic development in China. His research is interdisciplinary in nature, and draws on the theories and methods associated with Social Anthropology, Sociology and Human Geography, and can be divided into three main strands. Currently, his main area of research explores the ways in which microcredit programmes are implemented at the township and village levels in rural China, and the roles that these programmes play in local development strategies and livelihoods. Nicholas’ second strand of research examines the co-operative management of collectively owned resources, particularly with regard to the co-operative acquisition and organisation of financial resources in order to scale-up agricultural production and to develop/utilise renewable energy technologies. Underpinning these two areas of inquiry, his third strand of research critically reflects on the methodological techniques used to collect and analyse data in local China and other ‘developing’ contexts, especially with regard to in-depth empirical fieldwork based on grounded, ethnographic and/or participatory approaches. Before taking up a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Australian Centre on China in the World, Nicholas completed his Ph.D. in East Asian Studies at the University of Leeds (UK), an M.A. in International Relations at Xiamen University (PRC) and a B.A. in English Literature at Northern Illinois University (USA).