Michael T. Heneise
Editor-in-Chief, HIMALAYA·Editor-in-Chief, The Highlander Journal
Associate Professor of Religious Studies, UiT The Arctic University of Norway
About
I am a social anthropologist working in the Himalayas and across Highland Asia. My research concerns indigenous religion, ecological knowledge, ritual healing, medical pluralism, dreams, and oral epics — how highland communities know, heal, and imagine their worlds amid profound ecological and political change.
I completed my doctorate at the University of Edinburgh with an ethnography of dreams and agency among the Angami Naga in the Indo–Myanmar highlands, following earlier anthropological research in the South American Andes and studies at FLACSO in Ecuador. In 2013 I co-founded the Highland Institute in Kohima, Nagaland — an independent research centre for Highland Asia — where I now serve as President.
With Dharamsing Teron, I am currently completing the first full documentation and translation of the 35-hour Kecharhe Alun oral epic of Karbi Anglong, Assam, a project carried out with a community of indigenous researchers.
Books
Selected Writing
Editorial & Affiliations
- HIMALAYA, Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies — Editor-in-Chief
- The Highlander: Journal of Highland Asia — Editor-in-Chief; founder of Highlander Books, an open-access academic press
- The South Asianist, Centre for South Asian Studies, University of Edinburgh — Founding Editor (2011), currently Acting Editor
- The Highland Institute, Kohima — President & Co-Founder
- Research projects: Ekologos · PluriMed · Kecharhe Alun oral epic documentation