Ping-hsiu Alice Lin is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Anthropology at Harvard University. She was formerly an Academy Scholar at the Harvard Academy for International & Area Studies. Previously a Doctoral Fellow (2020-21) at the Center for Global Asia, New York University Shanghai, she defended her Ph.D. in Anthropology from the Chinese University of Hong Kong in July 2021.

Her book manuscript “Precious Economies: Labor, Place and Value in the Afghan-Pakistan Borderlands” examines the colored stone trade in northwest Pakistan and its adjacent regions, exploring the links between imperialism, mining, artisanship, geosciences, and commodity chains. At stake in her research is the rethinking of the relation between value and imperial legacies, and ideas of quality and authenticity in the Global North that have come to shape the market for precious minerals. For this project, she has conducted ethnographic and archival research primarily in Peshawar and Bangkok, as well as Beruwala, Karachi, and mining areas in northern Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan.

The in-progress book is based on her eponymous dissertation, which was awarded the IACS Dissertation Prize 2023 and shortlisted for the ICAS Dissertation Prize 2023.

Ping-hsiu’s research is supported by grants from the Wenner-Gren Foundation, American Institute of Afghanistan Studies, EHESS, and the Chinese University of Hong Kong.