Lauren Chew

Lauren Chew is a Ph.D. candidate in Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Michigan. Her research examines how Temuan Indigenous communities in peri-urban Peninsular Malaysia govern food and land amid urban expansion and land insecurity.

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and legal and policy analysis, she brings together Indigenous food sovereignty, legal pluralism, and Indigenous planning to study how authority over land and food is enacted through everyday practice and negotiated across overlapping systems of governance. Her work examines how state law, customary governance, and planning frameworks reshape or render Indigenous practices and territories invisible, while also considering how Indigenous authority is continually sustained through relationships to food. 

Before beginning her Ph.D., Lauren worked in the non-governmental sector in Peninsular Malaysia. She worked closely with Orang Asli Jakun communities on projects related to clean water, renewable energy, and regenerative agriculture.

Born and raised in Malaysia, she holds a B.A. in Politics and International Relations from Furman University and an MSc in Social Development Practice from UCL, University College London.