Graduate students
Tomi Bartole
Email: tb46@st-andrews.ac.uk
Nationality:Slovenian
Thesis/Research: Transforming Bodies, Transforming Social Relations: An Ethnographic Analysis of the Sense of Touch, Papua New Guinea
Supervisor: Professor Christina Toren
Thesis: My research explores the functions and values of Intangible Cultural Heritage - specifically the performing arts - in Tonga. My main focus is how Intangible Cultural Heritage expressions or practices are being valued on a local (Tonga) and International level (UNESCO convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage), and the mechanisms designed on both levels to promote and preserve it.
Biography: I completed my Bachelor of Science in Political Science at the University of Ljubljana in 2007 and a Master of Science in Medical Anthropology at the University of Nova Gorica and Scientific Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts with Prof Borut Telban and Dr Raoul Kirchmayr in 2010. I began my PhD studies in Social Anthropology at the Unviersity of St Andrews in the fall of 2012.
Research Interests: My principal research interests lie in the sociocultural significance of the concept and phenomenon of touch. Other areas of research interest are theories of embodiment, experience, and the phenomenon of ambiguity. Currently I am investigating the structure of touch, and its embedding in social relations. My objective is to build on the foundation of my Master of Science degree to develop a coherent theory of touch and social change. In addition to anthropology, my expertise and interests are in psychoanalysis and philosophy.
My proposed research project takes its initial inspiration from the conversation between Maurice Leenhardt and an elderly indigenous philosopher about the impact of European civilisation on the cosmo-centric world of the Canaques. When Leenhardt provoked his old friend Boesoou by saying that foreigners had introduced the notion of spirit to the Canaques’ way of thinking, Boesoou objected: “We have always acted in accord with the spirit. What you’ve brought us is the body”. This objection throws into question the idea of ‘the body’ and the impact that the ‘introduction of the body’ has on social relations and social reality. The investigation of social change proposed here proceeds through the perspective of the sense of touch in order to concentrate attention not only on the idea of the body, but also on its material dimension. Through the phenomenon of touch, which necessarily entails ideas of the body, this research enriches the number of variables necessary for an analysis of social change. This project also seeks to establish, by virtue of a phenomenological approach to the body, a methodological platform where all these variables converge and intersect, in order to propose an innovative investigation of social change in a small-scale society of Papua New Guinea.
Conferences:
2010 Processuality and Essentialism: Theory of Embodiment as Ontology of Experience. International Conference at the University of Ljubljana, Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology titled Beyond Essentialisms: Challenges of Anthropology in the 21st Century.
2009 Questioning the Loss in Menopause: A short psychoanalytic commentary on Lock's Encounters with Aging. International Symposium at the University of Ljubljana, Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology titled Medical Anthropology and Biomedicine in Cooperation?
Fellowships:
2008 – 2009 Research Fellowship of the Italian Government. (From October 2008 to June 2009). University of Trieste (Italy), Department of Philosophy. Research's title: Analysis of the concept of sensibility (touch) in the philosophy of Jean-Luc Nancy and Jacques Derrida, in the psychoanalysis of Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan and in anthropology. Mentors Prof. Dr. Pier Aldo Rovatti and Prof. Dr. Raoul Kirchmayr.
Selected Publications:
2012. The structure of embodiment and the overcoming of dualism: an analysis of Margaret Lock’s paradigm of embodiment. Dialectical Anthropology, Volume 36, Numbers 1-2, Pages 89-106.
2011. Freud on Touch: Thinking Sexuality in Anthropology. Esercizi Filosofici 6: 376‒387.
Stephania Bobeldijk
Email: sb865@st-andrews.ac.uk
Nationality: Dutch
Thesis/Research: Promotion and Preservation of Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Kingdom of Tonga
Supervisor: Professor Christina Toren
Degree: MA Cultural Anthropology – Pacific Studies from the University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Research Interests: Tonga and the Pacific, and Polynesia; Identity; Ecological Anthropology; Property Rights.
Thesis: My research explores the functions and values of Intangible Cultural Heritage - specifically the performing arts - in Tonga. My main focus is how Intangible Cultural Heritage expressions or practices are being valued on a local (Tonga) and International level (UNESCO convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage), and the mechanisms designed on both levels to promote and preserve it.
Tammy Davies
Thesis/Research: The relationship between poverty and ecosystem services in the Solomon Islands.
Supervisor: Dr. Ioan Fazey
Degree: BSc Biology (Durham) 2004; MSc Conservation & Biodiversity (Exeter) 2008
Research interests: I am interested in incorporating a multi-disciplinary approach to inform conservation strategies. I am especially interested in how poverty affects people's use of environmental resources, and the implications this has for long-term sustinability.
Fiona Hukula
Nationality: Papua New Guinean
Thesis/Research: Gender based violence & masculinity in an urban PNG settlement
Supervisor: Dr Tony Crook
Degree: BA (social & cultural anth), Victoria, NZ; MA (International Criminology), Sheffield
Interests: I am interested in the role of anthropology in contemporary Melanesia. My research interest is in the area of gender based violence, specifically masculinity in Papua New Guinea. My other interests include social identity, crime surveys and the role of ethnography in HIV and AIDs research.
Edwin Jones
Email: ecfj2@st-andrews.ac.uk
Thesis:Takō-Lavō Kinship, Oral Tradition & the State of Fiji
Supervisor: Prof. Christina Toren
Nationality: English
Research:In Fiji's Nabobuco district, kinship is characterised to a large extent by the Tak?-Lav? two-section system, whereby an individual belongs to the opposite section of his or her father. This is a feature of Fijian social relations yet to be explored in detail but which is central to a particular form of highland kinship referred to as veikaicini. In recent years there has been increased governmental interest in localised cultural differences such as the Tak?-Lav? system, leading to the ratification of the 'UNESCO 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage' and the implementation of a 'Cultural Mapping Project' which represents the most significant contribution to the recording of local customs and social organisation since the Native Lands Commission hearings. Part of my research focuses on how cultural knowledge is documented and disseminated at the national level through governmental departments and the weekly newspaper Nai Lalakai, which recently published a series of articles about Nabobuco and discussed the rich array of local prophecies developed within the poetry formats of serekali and meke, many of which point to a prosperous 'time of Fiji' (gauna kei Viti). The title of my thesis thus plays on the double meaning of 'state', referring to the relationship between oral tradition and the state as well as to local perceptions of this emerging epoch (the 'time of Fiji'), which remains loosely defined but is related to indigenised Christianities and the development of a collective iTaukei (indigenous Fijian) identity within a multiethnic and postcolonial nation.
Papers: Alcohol Use & Fijian Masculinity: An Ethnographic Case Study. Presented at the Pacific Drug and Alcohol Research Network 2011 meeting hosted by the Australian National Council on Drugs and the Burnet Institute. (August 2011. Yanuca, Fiji).
Exploring iTaukei perspectives on yaqona, the globalisation of kava and rural development in Fiji. Presented at the USP School of Social Sciences Seminar Series. (May 2011. University of the South Pacific, Fiji).
Alcohol Policy in Fiji: The Shift Towards Liberalisation. Presented at the 'Social Policy, Social Welfare Systems and Human Security in the Pacific Conference'. (October 2010. University of the South Pacific, Fiji).
Comparing Visions of 'Village' and 'Town' in Oceania: Kava and Alcohol Use in Peri-Urban Fiji. Presented at the European Society for Oceanists' 8th conference: 'Exchanging Knowledge in Oceania'. (July 2010. University of St. Andrews, U.K).
Degrees: MA Sociology, University of the South Pacific, 2009. Thesis: Fijian Masculinity & Alcohol Use: An ethnographic study of male drinkers in Qauia settlement.
BSc Psychology & Social Anthropology, Brunel University, 2006. Dissertation: 'Inåfa'måolek': Chamorro kinship and cultural cognition.
Simon Kenema
Nationality: Papua New Guinea (PNG)
Degree: Bachelors Degree in Communication for Development, Papua New Guinea University of Technology
Research Interests: I have an interest in mineral resource development and the nature of economic, social and political relations between host communities, the governance institutions and other special interest groups in PNG. I have 5 years experience of working with communities in oil and gas and the mining industry in PNG. I am interested in seeking how the 'actors' in the industry pursue and attempt to establish sustainable relations.
Anthony Pickles
Nationality: British
mail: ajp68@st-andrews.ac.uk
Thesis: The Pattern Changes Changes: Gambling Value in New Guinea
Supervisor: Dr. Adam Reed
Degrees: Bachelor of Science in Anthropology, University College London, 2006. Master of Research in Anthropology, University College London, 2007.
Research Interests: My thesis is a study of gambling in Goroka, the Papua New Guinea Highlands town where 71% of the population gamble. Gambling is a new practice for Papua New Guineans, stemming from European contact in the 1940's. My broader archival and bibliographic research shows that a wildfire of cards and money was unleashed close on the heels of money, wage-work and markets. The popularity of gambling in the region is surprising to social scientists, however, because the peoples now so enamoured with gambling (Zimmer 1987; Mimica 2006) are famous not for a love of competitive acquisition but for competitively giving things away. Yet gambling spread, even though gifting has remained the primary way in which people conduct transactions. Gambling in gift-societies is a provocative paradox for anthropology, defying – we might think – discipline-defining analyses of the gift. My research demonstrates such opposition is false. Gambling is instead a new analytic technique for manipulating value into a language of regard, contributing to economic, risk, ethnomathematical, Melanesian, and urban anthropology.
Publications:
'Gambling Futures: Playing Bom ('Bomb') and Anticipating the Future in Goroka, Highland Papua New Guinea' in Will Rollason (ed.) Future Selves in the Pacific, Berghann (7,780 words), In Press
'Part and Whole Numbers: An 'Enumerative' Reinterpretation of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits and Its Subjects', Oceania 79:3 293-315 Nov 2009
'Pocket Calculator: A Humdrum Obviator in Papua New Guinea', Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Submitted
Book Review (750 words): From Land to Mouth: The Agricultural "Economy" of the Wola of the New Guinea Highlands, by Paul Sillitoe. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Forthcoming
Priscila Santos da Costa
Thesis/Research: The Rhetoric of Porigi in Community Building at Karimui
Research: My research proposes to visit the Daribi people in Papua New Guinea and to examine a particular mode of speech called porigi-po, the rhetoric of political persuasion glossed as "the talk that turns back on itself as it is spoken". The central questions I will address are: what is the role of porigi within villages and in intra-village disputes? Is it gender-specific? What forms does it take in local and regional politics? Finally, how might it use negotiations with outsiders such as NGO's, government officials, and corporations to reproduce its own creative forms? In brief, through porigi I aim to examine how narrative presentations are enacted and their resonance in democratic processes of contemporary PNG.
Biography: Priscila Santos da Costa was raised in Aracaju, Brazil. She studied Social Sciences with a concentration in Anthropology at the Universidade Estadual de São Paulo (UNESP), in Araraquara. While undertaking her undergraduate studies she learned Spanish in Madrid, French in Paris and German in Berlin. During this time she also translated anthropological works into Portuguese, all published in Brazil. In 2011, while completing her dissertation, she brought together Professors from Brazil, UK and the US to establish the open access on-line journal Conexões Parciais (ISSN 2238-0159), based out of UNESP. Currently in her first year of doctoral studies she continues to work on translations and maintains her position as Editor of Conexões Parciais.
Selected Publications:
2012 Revista Cadernos de Campo, University of São Paulo Press [ISSN 0104-5679]. Translation of the article "On Space and Depth", Marilyn Strathern. (English to Portuguese)
2011 Revista Conexões Parciais [ISSN 2238-0159]. Translation of the article "Planet M: The Intense Abstraction of Marilyn Strathern", Martin Holbraad and Peter Axel Pedersen. (English to Portuguese)
2010 Editora UNESP (Press), São Paulo. Translation of the book, "The Devil and Commodity Fetishism in South America, 30th Anniversary Ed.", Michael Taussig. (English to Portuguese)
Emilia Skrzypek
Thesis/Research: Sustainable Development, Corporate Social Responsibility and Agreement-Making at the Frieda River Copper Mine, Papua New Guinea
Supervisor: Dr Tony Crook
Academic History: MA (Hons) in Sustainable Development, University of St Andrews, 2008; MRes in Social Anthropology, University of St Andrews, 2009
Research Interests: With a background in Sustainable Development and a strong inter-disciplinary interest in Social Accounting, I am looking at the emergence and negotiation of relations between the Frieda River Mine's host community, the corporation developing the project, the impacted down-river stakeholders and the PNG government. My project analyses the encounters between ideas of knowledge and cosmology through a focus on how personal and social responsibility is conceived by different parties, and how this 'baseline' conceptualization of social relations has informed expectations and subsequent actions. It offers a fine grained examination of the potential that stakeholders on all sides perceive in Sustainable Development programmes and Corporate Social Responsibility policies as vehicles or leverage points for shaping the government, landowner, business and civil society cases currently being formulated and negotiated through formal agreement making and the informal 'social license to operate'.
Jonathan Tracey
Degree: BA Social Anthropology
Research Title: Vernacular Adaptations to Climate Change: An Anthropological Study in the Solomon Islands
Research: My research will involve investigating Solomon Islanders' understandings of land, sea, daily life, and cosmology. I suggest that Islanders' understandings will be especially important in the light of recent climate change concerns. Current depictions of the area suggest that the Solomon Islands will be particularly vulnerable to climate change induced disasters. However, these depictions of a culture facing climate change conceive of the problem and its remedies in strictly scientific/Euro-American political vernaculars, and in doing so create policies that perhaps miss out the Islanders' conception of the contemporary situation, and other possible remedies that Islanders themselves have. My research will involve depicting both Solomons *and* Euro-American perspectives on 'climate change in the Solomon Islands'. By using both perspectives, rather than prioritising one at the expense of the other, this research hopes to promote more culturally sensitive responses to potential crises that Islanders' may face.
Research Interests: Cosmology, Anthropology of Oceania, Representations of cultures facing climate change, Symbolic Anthropology