Prof Mette High

Prof Mette High

Professor

Phone
+44 (0)1334 46 1961
Email
mmh20@st-andrews.ac.uk
Office
Room 58, School 5
Location
United Colleges
Office hours
By appointment only

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Biography

Mette High’s field research is in Mongolia and the United States, where she focuses on questions of ethics and economic life.

High is the founding Director of the at 58³Ô¹Ï, which is a privately funded research centre that brings together more than 100 researchers across all disciplines and all levels of seniority. Concerned with issues of energy and climate change, the Centre offers a creative and dynamic research environment in which to push debates further and ask new questions in order to create a better energy future for us all.

She is also leading the Scottish Research Alliance for Energy, Homes and Livelihoods, which is a Scotland-wide consortium funded by the Scottish Funding Council. The Alliance brings together all the universities in Scotland along with business, industry, government, and community organisations to accelerate Scotland's interdisciplinary research capacity.Ìý

High recently completed her European Research Council-funded project: "". Based on multiple ethnographic studies across the world, this 6-year research project involved a 10-person research team and considered how people in the oil economy make financial and ethical valuations of oil. Bringing an anthropological sensitivity to issues of money, energy and climate change, the project provided a novel ethnographically grounded framework for investigating how oil valuations relate to political reforms and new climate economic initiatives.

Prior to this project, High was funded by the Leverhulme Trust to carry out a 3-year research project in the state of Colorado, USA.ÌýBuilding on her theoretical interest in ethical sensibilities and economic transformations in resource extraction,Ìýshe examined how oil and gas company workers perceived the risks and possibilities involved when applying the technology of ‘hydraulic fracturing’. Her fieldwork with on-site crew and executives in company headquarters informed her interest in topics such as energy industries, commodity markets and global finance, calculation and risk.Ìý

Before shifting her ethnographic focus to the United States, High pursued a 3-year research project on the involvement of Buddhist monks in a country-wide gold rush in Mongolia. Funded by the British Academy, she carried out ethnographic fieldwork in monasteries near the mining camps. In this project, she examined the institutionalisation of religious practice and self-transformational ethics in the context of a booming gold mining industry and drastic political reform.

For her study of the Mongolian gold rush, specifically the relationship between fundamental taboos related to the land and its spirits, she received her PhD in social anthropology from University of Cambridge in 2008.

Underlying all her research projects, where money, metals and energy travel far beyond national borders, is a keen and ongoing desire to understand how global economic processes intersect with intimate moral views. In addition to her academic publications, she also explores these topics in collaborations with artists and film makers as well as in her work as co-Chair for Research on the Environmental Sustainability Board, screening committee member of the 58³Ô¹Ï Prize for the Environment, and as Member and Chair of Advisory Boards for research projects in the UK and internationally.

Teaching

SA1002 – Section ‘Oil and Economic Life’

SA2001 – Section ‘New Turns’

SA2002 - Section 'Virtual Worlds'

SA3065 – Anthropology of Economic Life

SA4064 - Anthropology of Energy

SA5011 – Introduction to Anthropological Theory

Research areas

Mongolia, USA, extractive industries, economic transformations, energy and climate change, wealth and value, Buddhism and Christianity, ethics and cosmology.

She is currently supervisor for six PhD candidates: four at University of 58³Ô¹Ï and external PhD supervisor for a PhD candidate at NMBU, Norway, and a PhD candidate at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design.

She welcomes applications from potential PhD candidates on topics including any of the above, as well as wider topics to do with energy humanities.

PhD supervision

  • AveryÌýNewell

Selected publications

  • Helmcke, C., Hooker, S., Roney-Dougal, C., Skrzypek, E., Reid, L., Wishart, L. J., Russell, S., High, M., Lawson, I., Cole, L. E. S., Hope, J., Sfrappini, E., Christie, E., Paul, F., Mallows, C., Auxtova, K., Twist, B. & Gregnanin, G., 2026

    Research output: Other contribution

  • Helmcke, C., Hooker, S., Roney-Dougal, C., Skrzypek, E., Reid, L., Wishart, L. J., Russell, S., High, M., Lawson, I., Cole, L. E. S., Hope, J., Sfrappini, E., Christie, E., Paul, F., Auxtova , K., Gregnanin, G., Twist, B. & Mallows, C., 2026

    Research output: Other contribution

  • Open access
    Sareen, S., Inderberg, T. H. J., High, M., Rosenow, J., DellaValle, N., Niderehe, S., Gulbrandsen, L. H., Dodge, A. & Shokrgozar, S., 26 Mar 2026, (E-pub ahead of print) In: PLOS Climate. 5, 3, 14 p., e0000880.

    Research output: Contribution to journal › Review article › peer-review

  • Open access
    Helmcke, C., Christie, E., Twist, B., Mallows, C., Roney-Dougal, C., Sfrappini, E., Skrzypek, E., Paul, F., Gregnanin, G., Joubert, G., Lawson, I., Hope, J., Auxtova, K., Reid, L., Wishart, L. J., Cole, L. E. S., High, M., Conlan, P. J., Hooker, S. & Russell, S., 27 Mar 2026, Online: University of 58³Ô¹Ï. 11 p.

    Research output: Book/Report › Commissioned report

  • Helmcke, C., High, M., Sapochetti, L. & Sudmant, A., 16 Jul 2025, (Submitted)

    Research output: Other contribution

  • Helmcke, C., High, M. M., Skrzypek, E. & Sudmant, A., 22 Oct 2025, Scottish Government.

    Research output: Other contribution

  • Helmcke, C., High, M. & Sudmant, A., 19 Sept 2025, (Submitted)

    Research output: Book/Report › Other report

  • Open access
    High, M. M., 13 Jan 2025, Scottish Funding Council Blog.

    Research output: Other contribution

  • Field, S., High, M. M., Shipton, Z., Dickie, J. & Thomason, K., 8 Mar 2024, (Submitted) 10 p.

    Research output: Book/Report › Other report

  • Open access
    High, M. M. & Field, S., 13 Jun 2024, Scottish Funding Council Blog.

    Research output: Other contribution

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