John Taylor (Jack), BA/MA (Auckland), PhD (ANU)
GRC Visiting Fellow, Gender Relations Centre

Email: jack.taylor@anu.edu.au

Biographical Statement

My current research explores gender relations, male subjectivities and modernity in northern Vanuatu. I hold a BA in English literature and anthropology and a MA in social anthropology (1st Class Hons) from the University of Auckland. Research for the latter resulted in the monograph Consuming Identity: Modernity and Tourism in New Zealand (1998), and tourism, cross-cultural encounters and identity politics continue to be key research areas. My ANU PhD thesis, "Ways of the place: History, cosmology and material culture in North Pentecost, Vanuatu" (2003), won the inaugural prize for a doctoral thesis awarded by the Australian Anthropological Society in 2004, and has been revised for publication as a book.

Research Interests

The anthropology of Vanuatu and island Melanesia; masculinities; cosmologies and colonialism in cross-cultural perspective; ethnohistory and historiography; kinship and gender; modernity, tourism, ethnicity and identity politics in the Pacific region.

Key Publications

• Taylor, John P. 1998. Consuming Identity: modernity and tourism in New Zealand. Auckland: Department of Anthropology, The University of Auckland.
• Taylor, John P. n.d. Ways of the Place: history, cosmology and material culture in North Pentecost, Vanuatu. (Currently under consideration).
• Taylor, John P. 2005. The Ways of the Land-Tree: Sia Raga cosmography. In Reuter, Thomas and James Fox (eds.), Sharing the Earth, Dividing the Land: Territorial Categories and Institutions in the Austronesian World. Canberra: Pandanus Press. In press. (Accepted January, 2004).
• Taylor, John P. 2005. Paths of Relationship, Spirals of Exchange: imag(in)ing North Pentecost kinship. TAJA (special issue) 16(1).
• Taylor, John P. 2004. The Story of Jimmy: the practice of history in North Pentecost, Vanuatu. Oceania, 73(4):243-259.
• Taylor, John P. 2001. Authenticity and Sincerity in Tourism. Annals of Tourism Research, 28(1):7-26.