Staff profile

Professor Alberto Gomes

Professor

Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

School of Social Sciences

SS 409, Melbourne (Bundoora)

 

Qualifications

MA (Malaya), PhD (ANU).

Membership of professional Associations

1998 - Member of the Editorial Board of Asian Ethnicity Journal. 2007-Member of the Editorial Board of Suomen Antropologi (Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society).

Area of study

Anthropology
Asian Studies
International Development

Research interests

Asian History

- South and Southeast Asia

International Aid and Development

- Anthropology and sociology of development

Social and Cultural Anthropology

- Ethnicity and cultural identities

Teaching Units

ANT1CAG - Culture and Globalisation. ANT2/3 DGC - Development, Globalisation and Culture.

Recent Publications

Lim, TG, Gomes, AG and Rahman, A (eds), 2009, Multiethnic Malaysia: Past, Present and Future, Strategic Information and Research Development Centre and USCI University, Petaling Jaya and Kuala Lumpur.

 

Gomes, AG and Ghee, LT 2009, ‘Culture and Development in Malaysia’, in Lim Teck Ghee, Alberto Gomes, Azly Rahman (eds), Multiethnic Malaysia: Perspectives on Past, Present and Future, Strategic Information and Research Development Centre and USCI University, Petaling Jaya and Kuala Lumpur.

 

Gomes, AG 2009, ‘Ethnicisation of the Orang Asli: A Case-study on the Semai’, in Lim Teck Ghee, Alberto Gomes, Azly Rahman (eds), Multiethnic Malaysia: Past, Present and Future, Strategic Information and Research Development Centre and USCI University, Petaling Jaya and Kuala Lumpur.

 

Gomes, AG 2009, ‘Superlative Syndrome, Cultural Politics, and Neoliberalism in Malaysia’, in Lim Teck Ghee, Alberto Gomes, Azly Rahman (eds), Multiethnic Malaysia: Past, Present and Future, Strategic Information and Research Development Centre and USCI University, Petaling Jaya and Kuala Lumpur.

 

Gomes, AG 2007, Modernity and Malaysia: Settling the Menraq forest nomads, Routledge.

 

Gomes, AG 2007, '"Land Spilled With My Blood": Cultural Contestations and Spatial Transformation', in M Ruckenstein and M-L Karttunen (eds), On Foreign Ground: Moving between Countries and Categories, Finnish Literature Society, pp125-134.

 

Gomes, AG 2007, 'Cultural Syncretism, Civility and Religious Diversity in Goa, India', Suomen Antropologi (Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society), 32(3): 12-24.

 

Gomes, AG, Kaartinen, T and Kortteinen, T 2007, 'Introduction: Civility and Social Relations in South and Southeast Asia', Suomen Antropologi (Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society), 32(3): 4-11.

 

Gomes, AG 2004, Looking for Money: Capitalism and Modernity in an Orang Asli Village, COAC, Kuala Lumpur and Trans Pacific Press, Melbourne.

 

Gomes, AG 2004, ‘The Orang Asli of Malaysia’, IIAS (International Institute for Asian Studies) Newsletter 35, p 10.

Research projects

One of my current research projects is on civility and social relations in Goa (India) and in Malaysia. It is focused on two inter-related questions: how people living in multiethnic societies manage cultural diversity in ways that avert and avoid tensions and conflict and what sort of strategies people in these societies employ to sustain peaceful, harmonious, and civil social relations with others they perceive to be different?

My other current research project is on cultural politics and ethnicity in Malaysia. I have written several papers for seminar and conference presentations drawing from this project. I am in the process of developing these papers into book on cultural politics in Malaysia.

I am in the process of developing a research project focused on the impact of mining on Adivasis (Tribals) in Goa, India.