Floramante SJ Ponce merges various anthropological and sociological theories and methods to understand Southeast Asia’s economic, political, and sociocultural dynamics, particularly those of Laos and the Philippines. He holds a PhD in Social Anthropology from the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, where his doctoral research scrutinised how a Chinese hydropower project, part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, facilitates electric-induced modernity, market (dis)integration, and transformations in social, political, and cosmological relations among displaced communities in northern Laos.