Research in the School of Social Sciences

Anthropology

• Aboriginal Australia; Australia; Europe; Melanesia and Oceania; South Africa; South Asia (Nepal, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan); Southeast Asia (Thailand, Laos, Indonesia, Timor-Leste); and East Asia (China)
• Applied anthropology; environmental anthropology; ethnography in anthropology; theory and methods of anthropology; postmodern ethnography; material culture
• Art and aesthetics in cultural process; belief systems and ritual symbolism; cosmology and myth; cultural constitution of identity ethnicity; multiculturalism, nationalism, regionalism; domestic organisation; feminist perspectives in ethnography
• Colonialism, the state and Third and Fourth world peoples; contemporary society
• Critical studies in social development, especially in the Asia-Pacific region; peasant society; rural society and the contemporary state; small communities in contemporary complex society; social and political organisation; social mobility; systems of hierarchy and inequality; systems of land tenure
• Gender relations; mass/popular consumption; media; medical anthropology; photography and the production of political symbols; Theravada Buddhism; visual anthropology.

For more information please visit the Anthropology website.

Asian Studies

Second Language Acquisition and Information Management in LOTE
Ms Naomi Aoki

Second language acquisition, and the roles of Universal Grammar and L1 transfer in the adult L2 acquisition of morpho-syntax and phonology, and the implications of such research for language teaching
Ms Kayoko Enomoto

Rural China, Western media reporting of China, early Chinese migration to Australia, recent and contemporary Chinese politics, notably the Chinese Cultural Revolution
Professor Mobo C F Gao

Chinese politics and how these are influenced by social change, Chinese folk religion (especially gods and ghosts) and the ways Asia has influenced the West.
Dr Gerry Groot

Contemporary Japanese politics, Foreign Affairs and International relations
Professor Purnendra Jain

Classical Chinese poetics, fiction, philosophy and history of medicine
Dr Songping Jin

Politics of Identity in Japan and Korea, Political Economy of East Asian development and the character of East Asian societies
Dr Sejin Pak

Social basis of the political and economic orders in Japan and Korea
Dr Sejin Pak

Cultural Studies and Chinese literature, Chinese gender studies and semiotic changes in contemporary China
Dr Xianlin Song

Japanese studies, comparative education, the sociology of development and the politics of Japanese high school education
Dr Shoko Yoneyama

Comparative education, educational reforms and education history in China and Australia
Dr Ning Zhang

Visit the Asian Studies website for more information.

Geographical & Environmental Studies

• Asian demography
• Climate change
• Coastal management
• Environmental change: Australia, South-East
• Asia and the Pacific
• Environmental impact assessment
• Environmental planning and governance
• Environmental studies in biodiversity
• conservation and food security
• Human impact on lakes and wetlands
• Migration and development
• Migration policy
• Non-market valuation
• Population policy
• Regional development
• River monitoring
• Small-scale forestry
• Urban futures
• Urban management
• Water security

Visit the Geographical & Environmental Studies website for more information.

Gender Studies and Social Analysis

• Australia: cultural studies; gender and cultural difference; popular culture and media representations; race relations
• Feminism and: literary history; generations of women; historiography; history: Australia and Britain, 19th and 20th centuries; media studies; post-modernism and post-colonial perspectives
• Gender and: health, particularly in relation to reproduction; violence
• Health: medical anthropology; social policy
• History: life stories; social movements
• Industrial relations; media and power; social movements; union structures and practice; urban politics, work and social life; youth and work
• Post-colonial histories; research methodology; theory
• Sexuality
• Women and: ageing and health; heritage; women in Australian society; work

Visit the Gender Studies and Social Analysis website for more information.

Institutions with Affiliated Researchers

• The Confucius Institute
• The Fay Gale Centre for Research on Gender
• Australian Workplace Innovation and Social Research Centre
• Ethics Centre of South Australia