A/Prof Keith Barney
Keith Barney is a human geographer at the Crawford School of Public Policy, where he joined the Resources, Environment and Development Department in 2012. He has over 25 years’ experience working on environment and development challenges in rural Southeast Asia.
His research draws on political ecology, resource and economic geography, and agrarian studies, with sectoral expertise spanning forestry, land, water, energy, and mining governance. Grounded in long-term, multi-sited case studies and detailed ethnographic fieldwork, his work examines how public and private sector interventions reshape natural resource management and livelihood systems across Laos and the wider Southeast Asian region.
His recent publications extend this work to the intersections between natural resource governance, state power, socialist regime durability, and macroeconomic transformation in Laos.
In addition to his long-term engagements in Laos area studies, Keith has undertaken recent fieldwork in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia, analysing community agrarian–environmental transformations through new smallholder commodity systems, including gold mining and edible birds’ nest production.
His research has been supported through collaborative projects funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), the Australian Research Council (ARC), and the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR).
At the Crawford School, Keith enjoys all aspects of academic life, across research, teaching, supervision, and academic leadership. His leadership roles have included serving as Crawford School HDR Director (2020–2022), and as Head of the Resources, Environment and Development Department (2022–2024). He currently serves as Co-Chair of the CLGP-CBE Delegated Ethics Research Committee.
In 2026, Keith will be teaching Asia-Pacific Environmental Conflicts, Research Methods for Environmental Management and Development, and Research Proposal.
Currrent Primary PhD supervisor for:
PhD supervisory panel for:
Graduated PhD Primary Supervisions
- Dr Christina Griffin
- Dr Kanya Souksakoun
- Dr Vita Elysia
Research Interest
- Political ecology
- Resource and economic geography
- Agrarian transformations
- Southeast Asia area studies, with a focus on Lao PDR