Dr Anjalee Cohen

I completed a PhD in the Department of Anthropology at Macquarie University in 2006. My fieldwork was undertaken in northern Thailand on Thai youth culture, focussing on consumerism, drugs and gangs in urban Chiang Mai. My dissertation explores how young Thai people construct a sense of community and identity at the intersection of global capitalism, national ideologies and local culture.

Upon the completion of my PhD I joined the Brain and Mind Research Institute of the University of Sydney where I led a qualitative research project investigating young people’s experiences of mental health care. The findings of this project were used to inform the development of “headspace” youth mental health services across Australia. In 2008 I took up a research position at the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre of the University of New South Wales and acted as the Centre’s international research coordinator. I facilitated research collaboration with academic institutions and international organisations in the Asia-Pacific region including the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime. I also undertook ethnographic research on drug tourism in Pai, northern Thailand, for which I received an Australian Endeavour Research Fellowship in 2009.

As a result of my research in the public health field, I have become increasingly interested in medical anthropology and the valuable contribution ethnographic research can make to health interventions. Other areas of interest include youth culture and identity, globalisation and consumerism, urbanisation and experiences of modernity in contemporary Thailand and Southeast Asia.

Publications

Cohen, A. 2009. Dek Inter and the “Other”: Northern Thai Youth Subcultures in Urban Chiang Mai. SOJOURN: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia, 24 (2), 161-185.

Medlow, S., Kelk, N., Cohen, A & Hickie, I. (in press) Facilitating Early Interventions: Experiences of Young People and Implications for the Shaping of headspace Services. Australasian Psychiatry.

Cohen, A & McGregor, C. 2009. The Emergence of Amphetamine Type Stimulants in Thailand: Problems and Interventions. In Pates, R and Riley, D (eds). Interventions for Amphetamine Misuse. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

Cohen, A., Medlow, S., Kelk, N., & Hickie, I. 2009. Young People’s Experiences of Mental Health Care: Implications for the headspace Youth Mental Health Foundation. Youth Studies Australia. 28 (1), 13-20.

Cohen, A. (ed.) 2008. The International Arena: NDARC's Role in Global Research. Centrelines, October, Issue 24. National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, UNSW, Sydney.

Cohen, A. 2007. Young People’s Experiences of Mental Health Care. Headspace Consortium Report. Brain and Mind Research Institute, University of Sydney.

Cohen, A. (ed.) 2003. Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on the Reduction of Drug Related Harm. Strengthening Partnerships for a Safer Future, 6-10 April 2003, Chiang Mai, Thailand. Asian Harm Reduction Network, Chiang Mai.