Prof. Dr. David A. Palmer

Director, HKU Global Society and Sustainability

Overview

Prof. Dr. David A. Palmer is the Director of the HKU Global Society and Sustainability Lab and a Professor of Anthropology in the Department of Sociology and the Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Hong Kong. He also serves as Qiushi Visiting Professor at Zhejiang University, China. Dr. Palmer holds a BA from McGill University (Canada) and a PhD from the École Pratique des Hautes Études (Paris PSL University, France). He was previously the Eileen Barker Postdoctoral Fellow on Religion and Contemporary Society at the London School of Economics and Political Science. In 1987–88, he participated in the Pak-Canada World Youth Exchange — a joint initiative of the Pakistan Ministry of Education and the Canadian International Development Agency — where he lived in a village in the former NWFP and engaged in cultural and educational activities across Pakistan. Dr. Palmer is the author of several award-winning books on modern and contemporary China in the context of globalization. He currently leads major collaborative projects funded by the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong on the socio-cultural and religious dimensions of the Belt and Road Initiative. His work involves leading an international research team investigating the social impacts of Chinese infrastructure projects overseas and developing stakeholder engagement and social risk management approaches adapted to Chinese and local contexts.