Kimhean Hok

I joined the Centre for East and Southeast Asian Studies at Lund University as a PhD candidate in 2022. My research focuses on the political economy of development and social and political change, with particular attention to Cambodia and Southeast Asia. My doctoral project examines the mainstreaming of tech startups and innovation policy in Cambodia’s development discourse in relation to wider transformations in development governance and global capitalism. More broadly, it considers what this reveals about changing forms of governance and state-society relations in authoritarian contexts.

Beyond my doctoral research, I am involved in teaching elective and MA-level courses in the Asian Studies programme, including courses on development theories and issues in East and Southeast Asia, and on contemporary politics and society in Southeast Asia. Since 2025, I have served as coordinator of the Perspective Asia Lecture Series, the Centre’s flagship public lecture programme.

I received my B.A. in Political Science and Philosophy from Middlebury College (US) in 2015 and my MSc in Global Development from the University of Copenhagen (Denmark) in 2019.