Dr Xu Peng

Dr Xu Peng is a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for the Study of Illicit Economies, Violence, and Development (CIVAD) at SOAS University of London. 

Her research focuses on ethnic conflicts and illicit economies in Southeast Asia, with a particular emphasis on Myanmar’s borderlands. She has published in top-tier area studies journals, including the Journal of Contemporary Asia and China Perspectives, contributing to key debates on regional security and political economy. Her expertise has also led to interviews with major international media outlets such as the BBC, Washington Post, and South China Morning Post, where she provides insights into Myanmar’s conflict dynamics and China’s foreign policy in Southeast Asia.

Her first book, Borderland Statecraft Armed Politics in Southeast Asia’s Contested Borderlands analysis the persistent and dynamic armed politics in the case of Myanmar. Her second book The second book project Logistics Politics in the Cracks: Digital Illicit Economies at the Margins examines how illicit digital economies reshape governance, logistics, and legitimacy at the global margins. It explores how actors in Southeast Asia and West Africa exploit infrastructural cracks and algorithmic systems to generate new forms of power beyond the state.