A man walking on a dirt path in a rural area, carrying a wooden pole with bunches of green plants hanging from it, surrounded by green fields and power lines under a cloudy sky.

Floramante SJ Ponce is a Filipino social anthropologist/sociologist who has been studying Laos since 2015. His work on infrastructure development, Chinese-financed projects, and electrical and metaphorical forms of energy in Laos has been published in academic journals and edited volumes. Recently, New Mandala recognized Ponce as one of the emerging Southeast Asian scholars in 2025.