BA in Anthropology (Durham University, UK), MA in Social Anthropology (School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London), PhD in Social Anthropology (University College London). Doctoral thesis on media and nation-building among the Iban of Malaysian Borneo (2000). Study, research and/or teaching experience in Spain, Indonesia, Britain, Japan, Malaysia, Romania and Germany. From June 2001, German Research Council (DFG) Postdoctoral Research Fellow working on the interdisciplinary theme “Image, Medium, Body: an Anthropological Perspective” at the Staatliche Hochschule für Gestaltung, in Karlsruhe. Current research project is an inquiry into the socio-cognitive agency, cultural diffusion and institutionalisation of images, with special reference to festivals and other public events.

Publications

Articles and book chapters:

1994 Making the most of the Media, Anthropology Today, August 1994.

1996 A Sandinist counterattack in Borneo: a late reply to Derek Freeman (in Spanish), Anales del Museo Nacional de Antropologia III: 53-62, Madrid.

1998 Little by little, a national subculture is made: the role of modern media in the institutional transformations of Iban society, Borneo Research Bulletin 29: 95-128

1999 Prestige, risk and taboo among the Iban of Borneo (in Romanian), Dilema VII: 328

1999 The impact of television and radio on rural Iban: an ethnographic report. From a paper to the Seminar on Globalisation and its Impact on the Culture and Traditions in Sarawak, Kuching, 2-3 Dec 1997. Sarawak Development Journal 2 (2): 91-109.

2001 On being a freelance anthropologist in Romania. Yearbook of the Romanian Association of Cultural Anthropologists.

2001 Of cargo cults and public libraries (in Romanian), Dilema IX (441).

2002 The mediated production of ethnicity and nationalism among the Iban of Sarawak, 1954-1976. Borneo Research Bulletin, Vol. 32.

2002 Using maps and diagrams to teach a region-based anthropology. Anthropology in Action, Special Issue on the Uses of Visual Methods in the Teaching and Learning of Anthropology, July 2002.

in press Clock and calendar time: a missing anthropological problem. Time & Society, summer 2002.

forthcoming Knowledge, literacy, and media among the Iban of Sarawak: a reply to Maurice Bloch. Social Anthropology, Vol 11, no. 1 (February 2003).

forthcoming The life and afterlife crises of Saribas Iban television sets. Chapter for a material culture and social identity volume edited by Christopher Tilley.

forthcoming The mediated production of ethnicity and nationalism among the Iban of Sarawak (II), 1977-2002. Borneo Research Bulletin, Vol. 33, 2003.

submitted Visual anthropology and the cultural epidemics of institutions. Submitted to the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute in April 2002.

in progress Photographs and humans as socio-cognitive-technological agents. To be submitted to the Journal of Material Culture in June 2002.

in progress Spectacular times: ritual, performance and media at a Dayak Festival. To be submitted to Ethnos in July 2002.

in progress The mediated appropriation of development ideals in East Malaysia. To be submitted to Media, Culture & Society in the summer of 2002.


Book reviews:

in progress Review for the journal Anthropological Theory of D. Holland et al’s (1998) Identity and Agency in Cultural Worlds.

in progress Review for the International Journal of Comparative Sociology of D.E. Andersson and J.P.H. Poon (eds.) Asia-Pacific Transitions, (Basingstoke): Palgrave.


Translations:

Translation into Spanish of G. Stocking (1965) ‘On the limits of ‘presentism’ and ‘historicism’ in the historiography of the behavioral sciences’ in his Race, Culture and Evolution: Essays in the History of Anthropology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Published in Ensayos Metodológicos de Historia de la Antropología, Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas.

Invited Lectures

1995 A Sandinist counterattack in Borneo: a late reply to Derek Freeman (in Spanish). Special lecture at the National Museum of Anthropology. Madrid, 2 May.

1998 Media and social change among the Iban of Sarawak: some preliminary reflections. Invited lecture to the Museum of Sarawak in collaboration with the Council for Customary Law. Kuching, 10 April.

1999 Ritual, performance and media: the Iban case. Invited lecture to the Media and Religion Workshop, School of Oriental and African Studies. London, 6 March.

2001 The uneven distribution of visual representations across human regions: a comparative exploration. Lecture to the Staatliche Hochschule für Gestaltung, Karlsruhe, 26 April.

2001 Of popular images and anthropological method. Lecture to the Anthropology Department, University of Heidelberg, 11 July.

Academic papers

1998 The Iban Section of Radio Televisyen Malaysia. Paper (in Iban) to the workshop on the current situation and futures of Iban-language broadcasting. Kuching, 4 April.

1999 Ritual, media and sound among the Iban of Malaysian Borneo. Paper to the Symposium ‘Turn on and Tune in: Media and Sound in Anthropology’. University of Frankfurt (Main), 13 December.

2000 Social anthropology, media and development. Paper to the conference ‘Anthropology, Mass Media and Local Development’. UTAD, Miranda do Douro, Portugal, 24-26 February.

2000 Borneo again? Media and the nationalisation of East Malaysia. Paper to the workshop ‘Deterritorialising and Territorialising the Nation’ of the 6th EASA Conference, Krakow, 26-29 July.

2001 Using maps and diagrams to teach ethnology. Paper to the panel ‘Iconography in anthropological teaching, research and representation’, part of ‘Working Images’, a joint meeting of the Visual Anthropology Network and Teaching Anthropology Network of the EASA, Museu Nacional de Etnologia, Lisbon, 20th-23rd September 2001.

2001 The visual anthropology of non-visual anthropologists. Paper to the Research Group (Graduiertenkolleg) on “Image, Body, Media”, Staatliche Hochschule für Gestaltung, Karlsruhe, 7 December 2001.

2002 Images, bodies and media: an anthropological introduction. Keynote address to the Anthropological Meeting, Staatliche Hochschule für Gestaltung, Karlsruhe, 5 June 2002.

in progress Cracking the national cultures of Britain, Germany and Romania: a cultural traffic approach. Paper to the Conference in European Ethnology, Belfast, 23-25 June 2002.

in progress Nation-states as culture areas: a comparison of popular media in Bali and Sarawak. Paper to the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS), Workshop "Globalizing Media and Local Society in Indonesia", Leiden, 13-14 September 2002.

Events organised

September 2002 Visual anthropology workshop convenor, Copenhagen. ‘Innovations in Visual Anthropology’, EASA Conference (co-organised with Sarah Pink and Ana Isabel Afonso).

5-7 June 2002 Anthropology meeting convenor, Karlsruhe. ‘Images, Media, Bodies: an Anthropological Perspective’. Speakers: Jack Goody, Tim Ingold, Tobias Wendl and Christoph Wulf. Staatliche Hochschule für Gestaltung, Karlsruhe, Germany (co-organised with Ilka Herrmann).

10-11 January 2001 Library workshop convenor, Bucharest. Conceptualised, planned and ran a workshop on the current situation and futures of university and public libraries in Bucharest. The workshop had a strong ‘media anthropology’ character. Participants linked concrete library problems with the wider local and national culture of mediated knowledge.

12 April 1998 Media workshop convenor, Kuching, East Malaysia. Conceptualised and co-organise a workshop on the current situation and futures of Iban-language broadcasting, Kuching. This was the first time ethnic Iban from a variety of backgrounds discussed such issues.