DR. SYLVIA NAM, UCI ANTHROPOLOGY

Dr. Sylvia Nam is Assistant Professor of anthropology here at UCI. She is an interdisciplinary scholar with research interests in cities, markets, and expertise. Her work brings together anthropological engagements with value alongside geographical theories on the production of space as the cutting edge of accumulation. Her current book manuscript, Phnom Penh, City of Speculation, is an ethnographic examination of speculative practices of real estate in Cambodia’s capital, the role of Asian investment in radically reshaping the city’s landscape, and the regulatory regimes that enable speculation and investment. Before coming to Irvine, Dr. Nam was a University of California President’s Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Anthropology at UC Riverside. Her Ph.D. is in City and Regional Planning with a designated emphasis in Global Metropolitan Studies from UC Berkeley.