Dr John Postill

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I studied anthropology at Durham University, the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, and University College London where I gained a PhD. I specialise in the anthropology of media and am the founder and coordinator of the EASA Media Anthropology Network.

In 1996-98 I did fieldwork on media and nation building among the Iban, an indigenous group of Sarawak, in Borneo (East Malaysia). This work resulted in a series of articles and in the book Media and Nation Building (Oxford and New York: Berghahn 2006). More recently, I have done research into Internet activism and local government in a suburb of Kuala Lumpur (Peninsular Malaysia). This will be published in the forthcoming book Grounding the Internet (Berghahn). I am also the co-editor, with Birgit Bräuchler, of Theorising Media and Practice (Berghahn), scheduled for publication in 2008.

Currently a Senior Lecturer in Media at Sheffield Hallam University, in the past I have held research fellowships at the Staatliche Hochschule für Gestaltung, in Karlsruhe and at the University of Bremen, and lectured at Staffordshire University, Loughborough University, SOAS, City Literary Institute, and the National School of Political Science and Public Administration (SNSPA), in Bucharest.

My research and teaching interests include social theory, media change, ritual, cognition, ethnicity, and nationalism, with special reference to Malaysia and Southeast Asia but with a keen comparative interest in Europe and other regions as well. I welcome PhD applications from individuals who wish to undertake research on any of these themes.

NEW! See my new blog media/anthropology here