Paul Sillitoe

Professor, Department of Anthropology

Paul’s research interests focus on natural resources management, technology, and development. A champion of indigenous knowledge in development and its incorporation into projects, particularly in the context of sustainable livelihood initiatives and appropriate technologies, he specialises in social change, livelihoods and technology, environment and conservation, biocultural diversity and land issues, human ecology and ethno-science, and has experience of working with several international development agencies. He has a long-standing interest in material culture studies sensu strictu, which predates the current booming interest in artefacts and museum ethnography, and he is responsible for the Anthropology Department’s Ethnographic Collections used in the Exhibiting Anthropology module on which he teaches. He has conducted extensive fieldwork in the S.W. Pacific region, notably in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea, where he first championed the competitive sociability of institutionalised corporate exchange individualism in seeking to locate and understand the ‘economy’. He has also been involved in projects in South Asia researching local environmental knowledge and development programmes, and has worked in the Gulf region on sustainable development initiatives and conservation issues.