Greg Rawlings

Associate Professor

Contact

Room 7N7
Tel +64 3 479 4905
Email greg.rawlings@otago.ac.nz

Research interests

• Globalisation, transnationalism, citizenship
• Statelessness
• Political, legal and economic anthropology
• History and anthropology
• Anthropology of taxation, 'tax havens' and offshore finance centres

Courses

• ANTH 206 Anthropology of Globalisation
• ANTH 312 Cultural Politics
• ANTH 327 Anthropology of Money
• ANTH 425 Anthropology of Transnationalism and Diaspora

Projects

Gregory (Greg) Rawlings is an Associate Professor in the Social Anthropology Programme in the School of Social Sciences, Division of Humanities at the University of Otago. Greg's research and teaching focuses on processes of globalisation, transnationalism and citizenship, with particular attention given to the synergies between socio-cultural anthropology and history.

Greg's PhD (2003) in Anthropology from the Australian National University (ANU), was based on 23 months ethnographic fieldwork in Pango village (a peri-urban community located just outside of the country's capital, Port Vila), where he explored the social, cultural and economic impacts of the Vanuatu tax haven on indigenous livelihoods. From 2002–2005, Greg was Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Centre for Tax System Integrity (CTSI) at the ANU where he carried out multi-sited and mixed-methods research on tax compliance in Australia, offshore finance in Andorra, Guernsey, Samoa and Singapore, and money laundering in The Netherlands. From 2006-2007, Greg lectured in the School of Archaeology & Anthropology at the ANU. During this period he pursued a number of applied anthropological projects and collaborative research endeavours with external agencies, most notably Australia's AusAID, examining governance, oversight institutions (auditors general, ombudsmen, parliamentary accounts committees and financial intelligence units) and leadership codes in the Pacific. Greg continues to write on taxation, the relationship between anthropology and taxation, and offshore finance.

Since his appointment at Otago in June 2007, Greg has embarked on research that is informed by thematic interests in history and anthropology, and law and society, to examine questions of 'race', citizenship and human rights in Vanuatu, as part of British colonial policy during the decolonisation of empire in the second half of the twentieth century. The first of a series of findings from this research are available in articles published in History & Anthropology, The Journal of Pacific History, TAJA: The Australian Journal of Anthropology, Twentieth Century British History, and a book chapter in the edited collection (Eds. J. Leckie, A. McCarthy & A. Wanhalla), Migrant Cross-Cultural Encounters in Asia and the Pacific, published by Routledge.  Although Greg's research areas are diverse, they are unified by an interest in the relationship between law, society and culture within the historically informed paradigms of transnationalism, globalisation and citizenship that frame much of contemporary social and cultural anthropology. He also works with a number of MA and PhD postgraduate students working in areas of transnationalism, globalisation and citizenship and in August 2011, Greg's supervision was recognised with the Top Humanities Supervisor of the Year award at the University of Otago.

Current supervision of student research, Anthropology, University of Otago (Primary supervisor)

PhD students

Dreux (Drew) Richard. The Rising Sun in Africa: Japan, Biafra and the Grey Market Between.

Completed supervision of student research, Anthropology, University of Otago (Primary Supervisor)

Honours students

2021

Alison Elliot. BA (Hons 2:1), (Otago 2021). Finders Keepers, The Losers and The Weepers: Museums, Repatriation and Culture.

2019

Amy Hema (Hons - 1st Class), (Otago, 2019). Hustle of the Precariate: Performative Workaholism in Neoliberal Times.

2018

Jennifer Bell (Hons - 1st Class), (Otago, 2018). Beyond the Prison Walls: The Post-Carceral Experience of Women in New Zealand.

Duke McLeod (Hons - 1st Class), (Otago, 2018). A Path of Justice and Compassion: About Vegan Muslims and Islamic Veganism.

2017

Elizabeth Corbett. BA (Hons - 1st Class), (Otago, 2017). Entering the Sugar Bowl: Constructions of Agency and Intimacy in the Media.

Lin Zhang. BA (Hons - 1st Class), (Otago, 2017). The Parental Choices of Overseas Schooling Among Chinese Middle Class – A Perspective from the Indigenous Chinese Concept of Quan Zi.

Nathan Hope-Johnstone. BA (Hons 2:1), (Otago, 2017). Fans are Slans': The Science fiction fandom's interaction with gender, race and identity, and its impact on the culture of the Science fiction genre.

2015

Briar Bradfield-Watson BA (Hons - 1st Class), (Otago, 2016). Fitspiration, Fitness, and Body Image.

2014

Jean Robertson. BA (Hons 2:1), (Otago, 2014). Private Place/Public Space: Challenges to Land Access, Use and Ownership in Aotearoa New Zealand.

2012

Harry Saunderson Warner, BA (Hons — 1st Class), (Otago, 2012). Online Embodiment, Facebook and the Construction of Self.

2011

Mattie Koenders, BA (Hons — 1st Class), (Otago, 2011). Living the Wanaka Dream: Networking the
Divide Between Work, Leisure and Ski Tourism in New Zealand's Southern Alps.

Danielle McGivern, BA (Hons — 1st Class), (Otago, 2011). The Human Terrain System: A Militarisation of Anthropology.

2010

Juliet Checketts nee Begley, BA (Hons — 1st Class), (Otago, 2010). The Politics of Concealment: The Manifestations of Race in the Northern Territory Emergency Response Intervention.

2008

Kirsten Stallard, BA (Hons — 1st Class), (Otago, 2008). RSE Participants in the Print Media of Marlborough.

MA students

Caitlin Devenish, BA (Otago 2022). The Identity Politics of Escape and Exclusion: Afrikaans Experiences of Loss and Enclave Nationalism. MA Coursework (Distinction). 25/02/2022-26/06/2023.

Erena Robins, BA (Hons — 1st Class), (Otago, 2014). Refugees: Narratives of Fear in Germany and the USA. (Distinction). 07/03/2017-28/06/2021.  
A copy of this thesis can be read here: https://hdl.handle.net/10523/12441

Kirsten Stallard, BA (Hons — 1st Class), (Otago, 2009). Neighbours and Social Capital in the wake of the Christchurch Earthquake.
01/02/2011-10/12-2012
A copy of this thesis can be read here: https://ourarchive.otago.ac.nz/handle/10523/3930

William (Will) Anderson, BPhEd (Hons) (Otago, 2009), BA (Otago, 2010). Shadow Cultures, Shadow Histories: Foreign Military Personnel in Africa, 1960–1980. (Distinction). 12/07/2010–30/11/2011.
A copy of this thesis can be read here: https://hdl.handle.net/10523/2117

Jeffrey Scofield, BA (University of California at Santa Cruz, 2008). The Promotion of Place: Immigration
Policies, Citizenship and Economic Reform in New Zealand. 01/03/2010–30/06/2011.
A copy of this thesis can be read here: https://hdl.handle.net/10523/1892

PhD students

Ben Wate, Negotiating the Sacred Space: A Comparative Study of the Dynamics of Culture and Christian Theology on Women in the South Sea Evangeical Church, and in the Anglican Church of Melanesia, Small Malaita, Solomon Islands. 01/07/2015–16/12/2020. A copy of this thesis can be read here: https://ourarchive.otago.ac.nz/handle/10523/10006

Nancy Earth, Contemporary Kagoshima Artist-potters: Gender, Tradition and Creativity. 01/01/2010–18/05/2019.

Mei Ding, The Travelling Minzu: Uyghur Migration and the Negotiation of Identities in China and Australia. 01/01/2011–15/12/2014. The abstract for this thesis can be read here: https://ourarchive.otago.ac.nz/handle/10523/5411

Rochelle-lee Bailey, Working the Vines: Seasonal Migration, Money and Development in New Zealand and Ambrym, Vanuatu. 23/03/2010–29/10/2014.
A copy of this thesis can be read here: https://ourarchive.otago.ac.nz/handle/10523/5063
Rochelle is now Research Fellow at the ANU College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University. More information about her current research is available at: https://researchers.anu.edu.au/researchers/bailey-r