Personal profile
Personal profile
Laurie Parsons is Reader in Human Geography at Royal Holloway, University of London and Principal Investigator of the projects The Disaster Trade: The Hidden Footprint of UK Imports and Investment Overseas and Hot Trends: How the Global Garment Industry Shapes Climate Vulnerability in Cambodia.
In these and other projects, he explores the experience of climate change in the global economy, exposing the hidden environmental impacts of global production and unequal landscape of exposure to climate change impacts.
He was previously Co-Investigator of the project Blood Bricks: Untold Stories of Modern Slavery and Climate Change from Cambodia, which examined brick kiln work in Cambodia through the lens of the contested politics of climate change on socio-economic inequalities, patterns of work and mobilities. In 2020, Blood Bricks was awarded the Times Higher Education Prize for Research Project of the Year.
Overarchingly, Laurie's work seeks to explore how climate change is articulated through the social, political and economic systems within which we live. This is therefore work which highlights the subjectivities and inequalities which shape climate change impacts, channeling their worst impacts through the lens of pre-existing local and global precarities.
His first book, Going Nowhere Fast: Inequality in the Age of Translocality, was published by Oxford University Press in August 2020 and subsequently shortlisted for the EuroSEAS 2021 Social Science book prize. An edited collection, entitled Climate Change in the Global Workplace was published with Routledge in 2021.
Strongly committed to policy engagement, Laurie has conducted large-scale projects examining inequalities in Cambodia’s economic development for Transparency International, Plan International, Save the Children, CARE International, ActionAid, the IDRC and the Royal University of Phnom Penh, among others.
Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals
In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):
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SDG 1 No Poverty
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SDG 2 Zero Hunger
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SDG 3 Good Health and Well-being
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SDG 5 Gender Equality
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SDG 8 Decent Work and Economic Growth
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SDG 10 Reduced Inequalities
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SDG 11 Sustainable Cities and Communities
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SDG 13 Climate Action
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SDG 16 Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
Collaborations and top research areas from the last five years
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Climate Hegemony: Confronting the Politics of Environmental Impasse
Parsons, L., 7 May 2026, LSE Books. 236 p. (RGS-IBG Book Series)Research output: Book/Report › Book
Open Access -
Climate-Linked Heat Inequality in the Global Southern Workforce: Cambodian Workers’ Economic and Health Vulnerability to High Core Temperatures in Five Occupational Sectors
Parsons, L., Mishra, P., Cole, J., Lawreniuk, S. & Ly Vouch, L., 11 Mar 2025, (E-pub ahead of print) In: Climate and Development.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open Access -
Critical Climate Geographies
Parsons, L., Howarth, C., Gagnon, A. S., Kythreotis, A. P., Machen, R., Safra de Campos, R., Taylor, O., Cocolas, N., Thew, H., Heath, S. C., Islam, F. B., James, M., Marshall, R., McQuaid, K. R. V. & Byfuglien, A., 27 Nov 2025, (E-pub ahead of print) In: Progress in Human Geography. 18 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open Access -
Depleted by Debt: “Green” Microfinance, Over-Indebtedness, and Social Reproduction in Climate-Vulnerable Cambodia
Guermond, V., Iskander, D., Michiels, S., Brickell, K., Faye, G., Ly Vouch, L., Natarajan, N., Parsons, L., Fiorella, P. & Green, W. N., Mar 2025, In: Antipode. 57, 2, p. 471-493 23 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open Access -
Towards a decolonial heat-health nexus: Disrupters, enablers and energy properties of heat from the 19th century to the present day
Parsons, L., Oct 2025, In: Social Science & Medicine. 382, 118357.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open AccessFile7 Downloads (Pure)
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HIDDEN SAND: Holistic Investigation of the Distribution, Extraction, and Networks associated with SAND
Parsons, L. (PI) & Jamieson, W. (Researcher CoI)
13/01/25 → 12/01/27
Project: Research
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Oppressive Heat: Heat Stress, Debt Bondage and British Overseas Investment in Cambodian Construction
Parsons, L. (PI) & Cole, J. (CoI)
1/03/23 → 28/02/27
Project: Research
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Depleted by Debt? Focusing a Gendered Lens on Climate Resilience, Credit and Malnutrition in Translocal Cambodia and South India
Brickell, K. (PI), Natarajan, N. (CoI), Parsons, L. (CoI), Guermond, V. (CoI), Picchioni, F. (CoI), Zanello, G. (CoI), Chann, S. (CoI), Guérin, I. (CoI), Joseph, N. (CoI), Govindan, V. (CoI) & Iskander, D. (CoI)
Project: Research
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Heat Stress in the Cambodian Workplace
Parsons, L. (PI), Cole, J. (CoI) & Mishra, P. (Researcher)
Project: Research
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Activities
- 7 Public engagement, outreach and knowledge exchange - Newspaper/magazine
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Microfinance loans could spell disaster in the time of coronavirus
Guermond, V. (Contributor), Joseph, N. (Contributor), Natarajan, N. (Contributor) & Parsons, L. (Contributor)
21 Jul 2020Activity: Other › Public engagement, outreach and knowledge exchange - Newspaper/magazine
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‘From Head to Toe a Yuon’: The Path From Prejudice to Deportation in Cambodia
Parsons, L. (Contributor)
16 Oct 2017Activity: Other › Public engagement, outreach and knowledge exchange - Newspaper/magazine
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A Look Beyond Income Reveals a Dark Future for Cambodian Inequality
Parsons, L. (Participant)
23 Aug 2017Activity: Other › Public engagement, outreach and knowledge exchange - Newspaper/magazine
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Deportation, exploitation and death at the Thai border
Parsons, L. (Participant)
29 Mar 2017Activity: Other › Public engagement, outreach and knowledge exchange - Newspaper/magazine
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Villages of the Damned: Cambodia's Begging 'Curse'
Parsons, L. (Participant)
21 Jul 2016Activity: Other › Public engagement, outreach and knowledge exchange - Newspaper/magazine
Prizes
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Association of American Publishers best Economics book, 2024
Parsons, L. (Recipient), 6 Mar 2024
Prize: Prize (including medals and awards)
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Times Higher Education “Research Project of the Year: Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences”
Brickell, K. (Recipient) & Parsons, L. (Recipient), 2020
Prize: Prize (including medals and awards)