Children take part in an introductory social anthropology class taught by Lorena Gibson at Talimi Haq School, Howrah | Photo by Lorena Gibson, January 2007

2024 Executive Committee

The Executive acts as the Ethics Committee of the Association.

Chairperson | Dr Fiona McCormack 

Email: fio@waikato.ac.nz

Fiona McCormack is a lecturer in Anthropology at the University of Waikato.  While she did her anthropology undergraduate studies in UCL, London, Fiona's graduate training is firmly grounded in New Zealand. Her research interests include economic and environmental anthropology, fisheries and indigeneity,  though she recently branched out and published a reflective piece on Northern Ireland, her place of birth.

Secretary and List Moderator | Jacs Forde

Email: jacs.forde@vuw.ac.nz

As ASAANZ secretary, Jacs can field your questions about ASAANZ, membership, and Anthropology in Aoteaora.

Treasurer and Archivist | Dr Barbara Andersen

Email: B.Andersen1@massey.ac.nz

Barbara Andersen is a lecturer in social anthropology at Massey University, Auckland specialising in medical anthropology and the anthropology of the Pacific. She conducted her PhD fieldwork in the highlands region of Papua New Guinea, focussing on how  young health workers are trained to be middle figures between the PNG state and the rural majority. Her current research explores the cultural consequences of housing shortages and processes of suburbanisation in PNG.

Kākano Fund Chairperson | Emeritus Professor Julie Park

Email: julie.park@auckland.ac.nz

Julie Park is a Professor Emerita in Anthropology in the School of Social Sciences at the University of Auckland. Her current research interests include haemophilia, tuberculosis and reproductive decision-making in the context of genetic conditions. Professor Park works in Aotearoa New Zealand and some parts of Polynesia and is an Honorary Life Member of ASAA/NZ.

Māori Representative | tba

IUAES, WCAA and WAU Representative | Dr Graeme MacRae

Email: G.S.Macrae@massey.ac.nz

Graeme MacRae is a senior lecturer in Social Anthropology at Massey University's Auckland campus. His research is at the intersections of human society/culture with environment/ecologies by way of technological interventions, such as architecture/urban design/landscape, agriculture, waste management, disaster recovery. In recent years this has meant mostly small-scale agriculture in Indonesia (Bali + Java) and occasionally in India.

Postgraduate Student Representative | tba

SITES Liaison | Dr Nayantara Sheoran Appleton

Email: Nayantara.s.appleton@vuw.ac.nz

Nayantara Sheoran Appleton is a senior lecturer in the School of Science in Society at Te Herenga Waka-Victoria University of Wellington. She is an interdisciplinary scholar with training in Feminist Medical Anthropology, Science and Technology Studies (STS), and Media Studies. Her research interests include hormonal contraceptives and reproductive rights, inclusions and exclusions in/from science, technology, and medicine from a feminist, queer, racial and post-colonial STS framework.

Royal Society Representative | Dr Corinna Howland

Email: Corinna.Howland@vuw.ac.nz

Corinna Howland is a lecturer in the Cultural Anthropology Programme at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington. She works at the intersection of the anthropology of ethics and economic anthropology in rural Latin America (Puno, Peru). Where much work in anthropology of ethics has focused on ‘positive’ elements such as goods, values, and virtues, Corinna is especially interested in how people negotiate what they find bad, difficult, troubling or immoral in their economic lives.

Anthropologists Outside Academia Representative | Dr Jane Horan

Email: jane.horan@plainjane.net.nz

Jane Horan received her PhD in economic anthropology from the University of Auckland in 2012. She works as a contract applied anthropologist for NGOs, Government, and corporate organisations.

Auckland University of Technology Campus Representative |
Professor Eleanor Holroyd

Email: eleanor.holroyd@aut.ac.nz

Eleanor Holroyd is a Professor in Nursing at Auckland University of Technology. She is also Associate Dean International and Engagement in AUT’s Faculty of Health and Environmental Sciences, and is currently Co-director of the AUT Centre For Migrant and Refugee Health Research. Eleanor has 30 years of experience working in the international university sector, predominantly in Asia (the Chinese University of Hong Kong, National University of Singapore, University of Hong Kong campus Shenzhen) and Australia (Head of Nursing, RMIT, and Edith Cowan University ), as well as more recently in East Africa, (Aga Khan University). Her research and teaching focus on health equity, human rights, and social justice and has spanned nursing, public health, and social sciences academic disciplines.

Massey University (Albany) Campus Representative | tba

Massey University (Manawatu) Campus Representative | tba

University of Auckland Campus Representative |
Associate Professor Marama Muru-Lanning

Email: M.Murulanning@auckland.ac.nz

Marama Muru-Lanning is an Associate Professor of Anthropology and the Co-Director of the James Henare Research Centre at the University of Auckland. She also Chairs the Waikato Tainui Endowed College for Research and Development. Her scholarship is dedicated to transdisciplinary research with Māori communities that prioritises equity and social justice. As a social anthropologist she focuses on the cultural specificity of tangata whenua groups and their unique sense of place and belonging in Aotearoa. What distinguishes Marama internationally as a social scientist is her specialisation in four interrelated research areas: 1. Water; 2. Human-environment relationships; 3. Mātauranga; and 4. Transdisciplinary methods. Over the past five years she has also developed a passion and advanced approaches and methods for conducting researching with, and for kaumātua (Māori elders) with her James Henare Research Centre colleagues.

Marama is from Tūrangawaewae Marae in Ngāruawahia, this place is a potent living memorial to the many Waikato people taken by the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918. She has whakapapa that connects her to Waikato, Ngāti Maniapoto and Ngāti Whātua.

University of Canterbury Campus Representative | tba

University of Otago Campus Representative | Dr Greg Rawlings

Email: greg.rawlings@otago.ac.nz

Gregory Rawlings is Head of Programme and Senior Lecturer 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.

University of Waikato Campus Representative | tba

Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington Campus Representative | Dr Amir Sayadabdi

Email: amir.sayadabdi@vuw.ac.nz

Amir Sayadabdi is a lecturer in Cultural Anthropology at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington. Amir is mainly interested in anthropology of food and its intersection with gender studies, migration studies, and studies of race, ethnicity, and nationalism. His PhD thesis explored the relationship between food(ways) and identity for diasporic Iranians in Aotearoa and showed how food and food practices can be deployed by migrants as a means to effectively and innovatively ‘operate’ in migratory sociocultural conditions, and to both consciously and unconsciously negotiate multiple, and at times contradictory, aspects of their gender and/or national identity in diasporic contexts.

Social Media Manager | Dr Lorena Gibson

Email: lorena.gibson@vuw.ac.nz

Lorena Gibson is a senior lecturer in Cultural Anthropology at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington who specializes in the anthropology of NGOs and education. Her research focuses on how NGOs engage in processes of development, the relationship between education and social change, hope and agency, gender relations, and creative artistic practices. She has worked in Papua New Guinea and India, and her current research (with Dr Grant Otsuki) explores how tertiary students, teachers, and institutions in Aotearoa engage educational content and digital platforms.