The project
Extreme temperatures already claim more lives around the world than any other natural hazard and under climate change this risk is increasing. Nevertheless, whilst the scale of the problem is increasingly recognised, understanding the lived experience of excess heat is a major research challenge.
A key issue facing such efforts is that heat stress is socially as well as geographically determined. The thermal experience of climate change is thus determined both by one’s position in space, and one’s position in society. The jobs we do, the roles we play in society, the conditions we work in, and our freedom within those roles, all shape our exposure to the changing climate. Recognising that the complexity and uniqueness of the climate crisis means we cannot continue to plan for it using the tools of the past, Oppressive Heat brings together a brand new suite of conceptual and methodological tools with which to analyse, interpret and address the dynamic global geography of thermal exposure under climate change.
Focusing on Cambodia, one of the world’s hottest and most humid countries, Oppressive Heat will show how climate impacts are shaped by positionality within the dynamic and interconnected global workplace. Aiming to initiate and develop a crucial new social-environmental scientific nexus on the working body under climate change, we work actively with governments, unions and scholars to reshape global understanding of heat stress in our warming world.
The team
Dr Laurie Parsons
Laurie Parsons is the Principal Investigator of the Oppressive Heat project. A Reader in Human Geography at Royal Holloway, University of London, his work explores the nexus of climate change and the global economy. For the last 16 years, his work has focused in particular on Cambodia, where he explores the impact of climate change on vulnerable workers. His books include Carbon Colonialism: How Rich Countries Export Climate Breakdown; Climate Change in the Global Workplace; and Going Nowhere Fast: Inequality in the Age of Translocality.
Dr Jennifer Cole
Jennifer Cole is a Co-Investigator of the Oppressive Heat project. A Senior Lecturer in Global and Planetary Health at Royal Holloway, University of London, her work explores environmental and behavioural risks to human health, mainly in developing regions of the Global South including India, Kenya, Nigeria and the Middle East. She is an active member of the Planetary Health Alliance and an Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a policy think tank. Her books and book contributions include Planetary Health: Human Health in an Era of Environmental Change; and chapters for the Handbook of Displacement; Companion to Development Studies, 4th Edition; and Planetary Health: Protecting Nature to Protect Ourselves.
Dr Joshua Dao-Wei
Joshua Dao-Wei Sim is a Research Fellow at the Human Potential Translational Research Programme, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore. He is a historian of China-Southeast Asia interactions, with a particular focus on heat health and religion. Some of his publications have appeared in Military Medicine, Healthcare, and Social Sciences and Missions. Before becoming a historian, Joshua worked as an exercise scientist in the Singapore Armed Forces. Currently, he is also working on a project which profiles the heat experiences and practices of Singapore households through physiology, rapid ethnography, and oral histories.
Dr Pratik Mishra
Pratik Mishra is a Postdoctoral Research Assistant with the Oppressive Heat project at Royal Holloway, University of London. He is a human geographer whose research looks at different facets of informal labour in the global South including circular migration, worksite-based social reproduction, climate precarity and social difference. His doctoral research at King's College London concerned the everyday politics of labour within a brick kiln cluster near Delhi, drawing connections between the fields of labour studies, political ecology, and urban studies. He also conducted post-doctoral research on the history of manual scavenging labour in South Asia, looking at caste, coloniality, and urban infrastructure. He is also presently involved in a film-making project on the life-worlds of brick kiln workers.
Ly Vouch Long
Ly Vouch Long is a freelance researcher in Cambodia. He has worked for various national and international NGOs and Universities on research projects in Cambodia on the impact of the environment and climate change impact. He is a co-author of the papers The Political Ecology of “Displacing” Floating Communities from Cambodia's Tonle Sap Lake, Microfinance, overindebtedness, and climate adaptation, New Evidence from Rural Cambodia and Trapped in the Service of debts.
Jason Lee
Jason Lee is an Associate Professor at the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore. He co-leads the Human Potential Translational Research Programme and directs the Heat Resilience and Performance Centre. Jason co-chairs the Heat Injury Clinical Practice Guidelines at the Ministry of Health and chairs the Scientific Committee on Thermal Factors at the International Commission on Occupational Health. He is on the management committee at the Global Heat Health Information Network and leads the WHO-WMO Southeast Asia Heat Health Node to scale up efforts in managing the complex health risks posed by rising ambient temperatures.
