Staff profile

Dr John Taylor

Lecturer

Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

School of Social Sciences

SS 421, Melbourne (Bundoora)

 

Qualifications

PhD (ANU), MA (Auckland).

Area of study

Anthropology

Brief profile

My research interests are focused within the Pacific region, including at home in New Zealand, and in Vanuatu where I have been conducting field research since 1999. My work is influenced by a range of critical theory, and is guided by the capacity of participant-observation and ethnography to directly engage the situations and struggles of everyday life and reveal deep understandings of ourselves in relation to others.

I’m currently exploring themes relating to the historical and contemporary transformation of masculinities in northern Vanuatu, particularly in terms of colonial and neo-colonial relations of power, including the sacred powers of Christianity and sorcery. I am also researching and writing on tourism and cultural heritage, for instance in writing about some spectacular northern Vanuatu rituals and cultural events, the participation of ni-Vanuatu within Vanuatu’s burgeoning tourism industry, and the activities of tourists and the dynamic nature of tourism photography.

Research interests

Religion and Society

- Popular culture, performance and the arts

Social and Cultural Anthropology

- Anthropology of tourism

- Gender and power

- Identity and material culture

Teaching units

  • ANT2CIA – Core Issues in Anthropology
  • ANT2/3PCP - Anthropology of Popular Culture
  • ANT2/3CHH - Culture Health and Healing
  • ANT2/3ASF – Culture on Display

Recent publications

Books and Edited Volumes

  • Taylor, J. (2008) The Other Side: ways of being and place in Vanuatu. Pacific Islands Monograph Series 22. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Centre for Pacific Studies and University of Hawai’i Press.
  • Taylor, J. (2008) (ed.) 'Changing Pacific Masculinities'. The Australian Journal of Anthropology (special issue) 19:2.
  • Taylor, J. (1998) Consuming Identity: modernity and tourism in New Zealand. Department of Anthropology Monograph Series. Auckland: University of Auckland.
  • Taylor, J. and Thieberger, N. (eds) (Forthcoming) Working Together: Vanuatu Research Histories, Collaborations, Projects and Reflections. Canberra: ANU E-Press.

Articles and Book Chapters

  • Taylor, J. (2011) 'Photogenic Authenticity and the Spectacular in Tourism'. La Ricerca Folkorica (special issue Indigenous Tourism and the Intricacies of Cross-cultural Understanding), 61: 32-40.
  • Taylor, J. (2010) 'The Troubled Histories of a Stranger God: religious crossing, sacred power and Anglican colonialism in Vanuatu'. Comparative Studies in Society and History 5(2): 418-446
  • Taylor, J. (2010) 'Janus and the Siren’s Call: kava and the articulation of gender and modernity in Vanuatu'. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Society 16(2): 279-296.
  • Taylor, J. (2008) 'Introduction: the "problem" of men'. In John P. Taylor (ed.) TAJA (special issue, Changing Pacific Masculinities) 19:2: 125-135.
  • Taylor, J. (2008) 'The Social Life of Rights: gender antagonism, modernity and raet in Vanuatu'. In John P. Taylor (ed.) TAJA (special issue, Changing Pacific Masculinities) 19:2: 165-178.
  • Taylor, J. (2006) 'The Ways of the Land-Tree: Mapping the North Pentecost social landscape'. In Thomas Reuter and James Fox (eds) Sharing the Earth, Dividing the Land: Territorial Categories and Institutions in the Austronesian World. Canberra: ANU E Press: 299-322.
  • Taylor, J. (2005) 'Paths of Relationship, Spirals of Exchange: imag(in)ing North Pentecost kinship'. TAJA (special issue) 16(1): 76-94.
  • Taylor, J. (2004) 'The Story of Jimmy: the practice of history in North Pentecost', Vanuatu. Oceania 73(4):243-259.
  • Taylor, J. (2001) 'Authenticity and Sincerity in Tourism'. Annals of Tourism Research 28(1):7-26.
  • Taylor, J. (Forthcoming) 'Wielded Power: a 'club made of wood' from Pentecost Island'. In Lissant Bolton, Nicholas Thomas, Elizabeth Bonshek and Julie Adams (eds), Melanesia: Art and Encounter. British Museum Press (Forthcoming).
  • Taylor, J. (Forthcoming) (with Benedicta Rousseau) 'Economies of Kastom: differentiating development in Vanuatu'. In Soumhya Venkatesan and Thomas Yarrow (eds) Differentiating Development: Beyond an Anthropology of Critique. (Forthcoming).
  • Taylor, J. (Under consideration) ‘Pikinini in Paradise: photography, souvenirs and the fantasy ‘child native’ in tourism.

Events

Research projects

Masculinities in Northern Vanuatu: gender, generation and social transformation (funded by the Wenner-Gren Foundation)

  • This project uses anthropological and ethno-historical techniques to explore dynamic transformations of masculinities within the diverse contexts of contemporary Melanesian modernity, wherein indigenous and exogenous forms are creatively combined. It investigates gender relations across rural and urban contexts, and in terms of traditional and popular culture, Christianity, sorcery and gender-based violence, local structures of governance and the nation-state. This research has been supported and funded by the Gender Relations Center’s ARC Discovery Project Oceanic Encounters (ANU) and by the Wenner-Gren foundation. 

Touring Pacific Cultures (with Kalissa Alexeyeff, The University of Melbourne)

  • ‘Touring Pacific Cultures’ explores new directions in the anthropological study of tourism at the critical intersection of three key themes—mobility, engagement and value. As tourism is vital to the economies of most Pacific nations and is a site for the meaningful and dynamic production of Pacific Islanders’ cultural values, this project seeks to animate a comparative regional perspective on crucial issues in the anthropology of tourism including those concerning the crafting of personal and social identities, community development and cultural heritage. In pushing both methodological and analytic visions beyond the divisive standpoints of academic cultural critique and industry/development-related academic concerns, we also seek to generate new theories to apprehend tourism as a complex and valuable site of lived engagement, where people experience, understand, articulate and create meaning across the swirling flows of a globalized world.