Diana Kim

Diana Kim is an Associate Professor at Georgetown University's Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, specializing in Southeast Asian political history and colonial legacies. Her research examines state formation, illicit economies, and the historical regulation of vice commodities.

Primary investigations focus on opium prohibition regimes in British Burma, Malaya, and French Indochina. Her work traces connections between colonial governance, market regulation, and the development of modern bureaucratic states in Southeast Asia.

Publications analyze how colonial administrations managed moral ambiguities surrounding vice economies while extending state power. Methodological contributions address challenges in historical archival research across Southeast Asia.