1. Summary:

- Work experience
2014-                    Full Professor
Department of Geography, McGill University, Montréal, Canada.

- Positions, scientific ranks and titles
Since 2018/1 Editor, Geoforum (academic journal)
Since 2016/11 Editorial Board Member, Pacific Affairs (academic journal)
Since 2001/1 Editorial Board Member, Asia Pacific Viewpoint (academic journal)
From 2020/10 - 2023/10 Editor, Journal of Vietnamese Studies (academic journal)

2. Main research and teaching directions:

My research agenda, broadly focusing on everyday livelihoods in Asia, argues that if we study how people make a living in a specific cultural and social environment – say, Muslim, Bugis small-scale traders in eastern Indonesia, or highland Hmong ethnic minority semi-subsistence farmers in Northern Vietnam – we find that people’s decisions are not always what outsiders, be they local government officials, aid agencies, or academics, think they would or should be. Yet these choices are often entirely rational to local people because of their own understandings of what success and development are, and their precise knowledge of the local context. If outsiders in their capacities as government policy makers, directors of aid programmes, or academics informing the former do not understand and come to acknowledge this, there are serious implications for the very people we aim to understand, discuss, and support. My research therefore strives to anchor development thinking and practice in the day-to-day realities and aspirations of local people who often find it difficult to ‘have a voice’ given their own political, cultural or economic positions.

3. Research achievements:

Books:
Turner, S. A. Derks, and J-F.Rousseau (editors) (2022) Fragrant Frontier. Global Spice Entanglements from the Sino-Vietnamese Uplands. Nordic Institute of Asian Studies Press. [ISBN: 978-87-7694-313-4]
Referred journal articles:
Turner, S. (2024) Disposable People as Infrastructure? The Livelihood Trials and Tactics of Three-Wheeler Delivery Drivers on Hanoi’s Streets, Vietnam. The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology, (online version) 1-23.doi.org/10.1080/14442213.2024.2320926

Turner, S., Pham, T.T.H., Ngo, T.H., Zuberec, C.* (2023). Rooftop gardening complexities in the Global South: Motivations, practices, and politics. Geographical Research, pp.1-15. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/1745-5871.12631

Nguyen, N.B.,* Turner, S. (2023). Turf wars: The livelihood and mobility frictions of motorbike taxi drivers on Hanoi’s streets. Asia Pacific Viewpoint. 64(2): 171–187.

Slack, P.* & Turner, S., (2023) “Ethnic minority livelihoods contesting state visions of 'ideal farmers' in Vietnam's northern borderlands”, Journal of Political Ecology 30(1), 448–470. doi: https://doi.org/10.2458/jpe.5650
Winner of the Eric Wolf Prize, Society for Applied Anthropology, 2022.

Garber, P.* and S. Turner (2023). Entangled, unraveled, and reconfigured: Human-animal relations among ethnic minority farmers and water buffalo in the northern uplands of Vietnam. Environment and Planning E. 6 (4). https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/25148486231151808

Pham, T T H., M. Lynch* and S. Turner 2023. Creative counter-discourses to the “green city” narrative: practices of small-scale urban agriculture in Hanoi, Vietnam. Local Environment. https://doi.org/10.1080/13549839.2022.2162028
Seufert, V.*, S.E. Austin*, M.G. Badami, S. Turner, N. Ramankutty (2023). The diversity of organic farmer motivations and livelihoods in the Global South – A case study in Kerala, India. Geoforum. 138.

Turner, S., Labbé, D., Zuberec, C*. & Nguyen, B. 2022. Creative Hubs in Hanoi, Vietnam: Will Community Visions and State Aspirations Consolidate or Collide? Media-Culture Journal, 25(3). https://doi.org/10.5204/mcj.2890


Labbe D, Zuberec C*, Turner S. 2022. Creative hubs in Hanoi, Vietnam: Transgressive spaces in a socialist state? Urban Studies. doi:10.1177/00420980221086371

Labbé, D. S. Turner, T-T-H Pham. 2022. Subaltern struggles to access public spaces: Young rural migrants in Hanoi, Vietnam. Population, Space and Place, https://doi.org/10.1002/psp.2614

Turner, S. 2022. Slow forms of infrastructural violence: The case of Vietnam’s mountainous northern borderlands. Geoforum, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2021.11.024

Turner, S. and *S. Delisle, 2021. ‘My Grandmother Never Told Me That Before!’ Collaborative oral histories with ethnic minority youth and elders in northern Vietnam. Commoning Ethnography, 4 (1), online. https://ojs.victoria.ac.nz/ce/article/view/6692/6560

Turner, S., *J. Langill, *B.N. Nguyen, 2021. The utterly unforeseen livelihood shock: COVID-19 and street vendor coping mechanisms in Hanoi, Chiang Mai and Luang Prabang. Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, https://doi.org/10.1111/sjtg.12396
[won ‘best overall paper’ for the journal for 2021]

Turner, S. *C. Zuberec, and *M. Kee 2021. Looking beyond the digital veil: an investigation of the (de)commodification of three “Vietnamese spices”. Food, Culture and Society, https://doi.org/10.1080/15528014.2021.2015666

Turner, S., *C. Zuberec, H.T.T. Pham, 2021. Visualizing frictional encounters: Analyzing and representing street vendor strategies in Vietnam through narrative mapping. Applied Geography, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apgeog.2021.102460


*Kee, M., Turner, S. & Labbé, D., 2021. ‘People want good graffiti’: Tensions, contradictions, and everyday politics surrounding graffiti in Hanoi, Vietnam. Area. https://doi.org/10.1111/area.12754

Nguyen, A.T., Turner, S. & Kalacska, M, 2021. Challenging slopes: ethnic minority livelihoods, state visions, and land-use land cover change in Vietnam’s northern mountainous borderlands. Environment, Development and Sustainability.  https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-021-01539-1

*Lynch, M. S. Turner, 2021. Rocking the boat: Intersectional resistance to marine conservation policies Wakatobi, Indonesia. Gender, Place & Culture, doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2021.1971630

*Zuo, Zhenting, *J. C. Langill, S. Turner, and J-F. Rousseau, 2021. Spices as the saviour? The complex vulnerabilities of three commodity crop booms and ethnic minority livelihoods in Yunnan’s agrarian frontier, Asia Pacific Viewpoint. 62 (1), 100-115.

Adenwala. A.* and S.Turner 2020. Small city politics in the Global South: state imaginaries and everyday realities of a frontier city in northern Vietnam, Urban Geography, DOI: 10.1080/02723638.2020.1842098
Po, J.Y.T.,* J.C. Langill,* S. Turner & J. Michaud 2020. Distilling Culture into Commodity? The Emergent Homemade Alcohol Trade and Gendered Livelihoods in Upland Northern Vietnam, The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology, 21:5, 397-415.
Zuo, Zhenting,* J.C.Langill,* S. Turner, and J-F. Rousseau 2020 (early view) Spices as the saviour? The complex vulnerabilities of three commodity crop booms and ethnic minority livelihoods in Yunnan’s agrarian frontier, Asia Pacific Viewpoint. https://doi.org/10.1111/apv.12291
Allaby, M.*, G.K. MacDonald, and S. Turner 2020. Growing pains: Small scale farmer responses to an urban rooftop farming and online marketplace enterprise in Montréal, Canada. Agriculture and Human Values https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-020-10173-y
Turner, Pham T-T-H, and Ngô T.H., 2020. The territorialization of Vietnam’s northern upland frontier: Migrant motivations and misgivings from World War Two until today. Migration and Society, 3 (1), 162-179.
Derks A., Turner S., and Ngô Thúy Hạnh, 2020. Bastard Spice or Champagne of Cinnamon? Conflicting Value Creations along Cinnamon Commodity Chains in Northern Vietnam. Development and Change, 1–26. DOI: 10.1111/dech.12582.
Pham, T-T-H and S. Turner, 2020. “If I want safe food I have to grow it myself’: Patterns and motivations behind agriculture in a small city in Vietnam’s northern borderlands. Land Use Policy, 96. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2020.104681.
Turner S., 2020. Informal motorbike taxi drivers and mobility injustice on Hanoi’s streets. Negotiating the curve of a new narrative. Journal of Transport Geography, 85. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2020.102728.
Turner S. & J. Michaud, 2020. Intergenerational strategies: The successes and failures of a Thai family’s approach to labour migration. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 46 (8), 1467-1665. DOI: 10.1080/1369183X.2018.1544487.
Turner, S., A. Derks, and Ngô Thúy Hạnh 2019. Flex crops or flex livelihoods? The story of a volatile commodity chain in upland northern Vietnam. Journal of Peasant Studies, 46 (2), 276-296.
Turner, S., M. Monnerat*, and P. Slack* 2019. Spice Trade 3.0: Exploring the Modern Spice Trade in Vietnam’s Northern Frontier. Gastronomica: The Journal of Critical Food Studies, 19, (4), 98–105.
Henein, Y., T-T-H Pham, and S. Turner 2019. A small upland city gets a big make-over: Local responses to state ‘modernity’ plans for Lao Cai, Vietnam. Urban Studies. DOI: 10.1177/0042098018814725
Rousseau J.F.* S. Turner and Y. Xu, 2019. Cardamom Casualties: Extreme Weather Events and Ethnic Minority Livelihood Vulnerability in the Sino-Vietnamese Borderlands. Climate, 7 (1), 1-15.
Turner, S., and Ngô Thúy Hạnh, 2019. Contesting socialist state visions for modern mobilities: Informal motorbike taxi drivers’ struggles and strategies on Hanoi’s streets, Vietnam. International Development Planning Review, 41(1), 43-61.

Book chapters:
Turner, S., A. Derks, and J-F.Rousseau, 2022. The fragrant frontier: Conceptual and contextual introductions. In: Turner, S., A. Derks, and J-F.Rousseau (eds) Fragrant Frontier. Global Spice Entanglements from the Sino-Vietnamese Uplands. Nordic Institute of Asian Studies Press. pp 1-42.
Turner, S. and A. Derks, 2022. Vietnam’s star anise commodity chains entangled in flex-crop debates. In: Turner, S., A. Derks, and J-F.Rousseau (eds) Fragrant Frontier. Global Spice Entanglements from the Sino-Vietnamese Uplands. Nordic Institute of Asian Studies Press. pp. 43-67.
Derks, D. S.Turner, and Ngô Thúy Hạnh, 2022. The taste of cinnamon: Making a specialty product in northern Vietnam. In: Turner, S., A. Derks, and J-F.Rousseau (eds) Fragrant Frontier. Global Spice Entanglements from the Sino-Vietnamese Uplands. Nordic Institute of Asian Studies Press. pp.94-121.
Turner, S. 2022. Afterword: Contemplating the initial impacts of COVID-19. In: Turner, S., A. Derks, and J-F.Rousseau (eds) Fragrant Frontier. Global Spice Entanglements from the Sino-Vietnamese Uplands. Nordic Institute of Asian Studies Press. pp.219-224.
Turner S. & J. Michaud, 2022. Intergenerational strategies: The successes and failures of a Thai family’s approach to labour migration. In Statham, P., Scuzzarello, S., Sunanta, S., & Trupp, A. (Eds.). Thai-Western Mobilities and Migration: Intimacy Within Cross-border Connections. London: Routledge.
Langill,J.C., Nguyen, B.N. and S. Turner, 2022. ‘If I Don’t Sell Food, How Would I Eat?’ Negotiating Street Vendor Livelihoods in the Context of COVID-19 Lockdowns in Urban Thailand, Vietnam, and Laos. In D. Brunn, D. Gilbreath (eds.), COVID-19 and a World of Ad Hoc Geographies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94350-9_67#DOI
Zuberec, C. and Sarah Turner 2022. Hanoi’s street vendors on the move. Itinerant vending tactics and mobile methods in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. In Ceren Sezer and Rianne van Melik (eds) Marketplaces: Movements, Representations and Practices. Routledge. pp.15-27.
Turner, S. and Nguyen, N. B. 2021. Street Vendor Struggles Maintaining a Livelihood Through the COVID-19 Lockdown in Hanoi Vietnam. In Doucet, B., van Melik, R. and Filion, P. (Eds) Global Reflections on COVID-19 and Urban Inequalities. Volume 1: Community and Society. Bristol: Bristol University Press, pp. 21-30.
Turner, S. 2021. Ch. 14 “Where I went today…”: Solicited Journals and Narrative Mapping. Iain Hay and Meagan Cope (eds) Qualitative Research Methods in Human Geography. Oxford University Press.
Turner, S., A. Adenwala and C. Zuberec 2020. Vulnerability and resilience on the streets: Interrogating intersectionality amongst Southeast Asia’s street vendors. K. Ruwanpura and S. Huang (eds) Handbook of Gender in Asia. Edward Elgar Publishing, pp203-217.
Turner, S. and C. Bonnin, 2019. “Us women know more about rice seeds”: Ethnic minority food security in upland northern Vietnam and the gendered implications of hybrid rice programmes. In: T. Devasahayam, (ed.) Ensuring a Square Meal: Women and Food Security in Southeast Asia. Singapore: World Scientific Press, pp.103-122.
- Highlight project topics hosted/participated (abroad, in Vietnam):
Please see website https://wp.geog.mcgill.ca/sturner/

4. Hoạt động cộng tác tại trường VNU-USSH:

- Participation in teaching (name of the major, subject, or language teaching and name of the faculty)
- Scientific guidance (the number of students and postgraduate students under your guidance till now)

Please see website: https://wp.geog.mcgill.ca/sturner/

5. Contact information:

Email: sarah.turner [at] mcgill.ca