Paul G. Keil Ph.D
Paul G. Keil Ph.D
QUALIFICATIONS
2017 Ph.D., Anthropology, Macquarie University, Australia
2011 Bachelor of Arts Honours, Anthropology, Macquarie University
2010 Bachelor of Arts, Psychology, Macquarie University
2002 Bachelor of Design Honours, Visual communication. University of Technology, Sydney
PRINCIPAL RESEARCH INTERESTS
More-than-human ethnography; interspecies teamwork; anthropology of hunting; wildlife coexistence; 4E cognition; aesthetics; vulnerability; wildlife co-existence; ecological anthropology; environmental humanities; environmental history; cognitive science.
RESEARCH PROFILE
My current and predominant line of enquiry focuses on pig hunting in New South Wales, Australia. Through ethnographic fieldwork I engage with questions related to interspecies collaboration and perception, aesthetics and ethics. In connection, I explore biosecurity practices and discourse related to the management of feral animals in Australia, taking into consideration shifting and plural perspectives on these animals and the environment.
My Ph.D. and ongoing research focus has been on human-elephant interactions in wild and domestic contexts Northeast India. Specifically, my ethnographic fieldwork on forms of copresence beyond conflict, and maps out the multi-faceted array of encounters at a single site, analysing the tensions and contradictions inherent to sharing with wildlife and the forms of vulnerability present for human and nonhuman alike.
Books
2024 The Presence of Elephants: Sharing lives and landscapes in Assam. Abingdon, Oxon, Routledge.
Edited Volumes and Special Issues
2023 Composing Worlds with Elephants: Interdisciplinary dialogues. Paris: Institut de recherche pour le développement. (co-editors Lainé, N., Rahmat, K.)
Journal Articles
2023 Unmaking the Feral: The shifting relationship between free-roaming pigs and settler Australians. Environmental Humanities 15 (2).
2023 Dodo dilemmas: Conflicting ethical loyalties in conservation social science research. Area 55(2): 245-253. (co-authors Fair H., Schreer, V., Kiik, L., Rust, N.)
2022 Ageing together: Interdependence in the memory compensation strategies of long-married older couples. Frontiers in Psychology, 13: 854051. (co-authors Harris, C.B., Sutton, J., McIlwain, N., Harris, S.A., Barnier, A.J., Savage, G. & Dixon, R.A.)
2021 Rank Atmospheres: the more-than-human scentspace and aesthetics of a pigdogging hunt, The Australian Journal of Anthropology, 32, 96-113.
2020 On the Trails of Free-Roaming Elephants: Human-Elephant Mobility and History across the Indo-Myanmar Highlands. Transfers 10, 2-3.
2017 Uncertain human-elephant encounters in North-East India. Journal of Religious and Political Practice, 3(3), 196-211.
2017 “Going episodic”: collaborative inhibition and facilitation when long-married couples remember together. Memory, 25(8), 1148-59. (co-authors Harris, C.B., Barnier, A.J., Sutton, J., & Dixon, A)
2015 Human-Sheepdog Distributed Cognitive Systems: An analysis of interspecies scaffolding at a sheepdog trial. Journal of Cognition and Culture, 15(5), 508-529.
2014 Couples as socially distributed cognitive systems: Remembering in everyday social and material contexts. Memory Studies, 7 (3), 285-297. (co-authors Harris, C.B., Barnier, A.J., Sutton, J.)
2014 Reaping what they sow: The benefits of remembering together in intimate couples. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 3(4), 261-265. (co-authors Barnier, A.J., Priddis, A.C., Broekhuijse, J., Harris, C.B., Cox, R., Congleton, A.R., Addis, D.R.)
2011 We Remember, We Forget: Collaborative Remembering in Older Couples. Discourse Processes, 46 (4), 267-303. (co-authors Harris, C.B., Barnier, A. J., Sutton, J.)
2010 The psychology of memory, extended mind and socially distributed remembering. Phenomenology of Cognitive Science, 9 (4), 521-560. (co-authors Harris, C.B., Barnier, A. J., Sutton, J.)
2010 How did you feel when “The Crocodile Hunter” died? Voicing and silencing in conversation influences memory for an autobiographical event. Memory, 18(2), 185-197. (co-authors Harris, C. B., Barnier, A. J., Sutton, J.)
Book Chapters
2023 Introduction, In Laine, N., Keil, P. & Rahmat, K. (eds.) Composing Worlds with Elephants. Paris: Institut de recherche pour le développement. . (co-authors Lainé, N., Rahmat, K.)
2023 Must as a biosocial event. In Laine, N., Keil, P. & Rahmat, K. (eds.) Composing Worlds with Elephants. Paris: Institut de recherche pour le développement.
2023 Lantana Elephants. In Laine, N., Keil, P. & Rahmat, K. (eds.) Composing Worlds with Elephants: Interdisciplinary dialogues (101-109). Paris: Institut de recherche pour le développement. (Co-author Nayar, S.)
2022 Human-elephant worlds in Northeast India. In J. Wouters & T. Subba (eds.) Routledge Companion to Northeast India. New Delhi: Routledge. (co-author Lainé, N.)
2016 Elephant-Human Dandi: How Humans and Elephants Move Through the Fringes of Forest and Village in Assam. In P. Locke & J. Buckingham (eds.), Rethinking Human-Elephant Relation in South Asia (pp. 197-223). New Delhi: Oxford University Press, India.
Ongoing projects and grants
2023 Veterinarization of Europe? Hunting for wild boar futures in the time of African swine fever. European Research Council Consolidator Grant (866350). Postdoctoral Researcher.
Past Projects and Grants
2021 “Hunting the Unruly Pigs of the New Wild: An anthropology of recreational pig hunting” Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action CZ: FERALHUNT (EF20_079/0017525) Mezinárodní mobilita výzkumných, technických a administrativních pracovníků výzkumných organizací, January 2021- December 2022. Principal investigator
2016 “Human-Elephant Entanglements” Postgraduate Research Fund (PGRF), Macquarie University.
2014 “Human-elephant relations beyond conflict in Assam” Prime Minister's Australia Asia Endeavour Outgoing Postgraduate Scholarship
2012 "Belief in memory". Macquarie University, CCD 2012 Cross Program Support Scheme (co-investigators Barnier, A., (PI) Savage, G. D.R. Addis, R. Cox, J. Sutton, N. Bullot, C. Harris, M. Irish, E. Connaughton, A. Cordonnier, A. Selwood, M. Temler, K. Williamson, A. Devitt.)
Editorial Work
2012-14 Student Anthropologist Journal. Editorial Board.
Board Memberships
Ongoing Coexistence Consortium, NGO, Bangalore India
External Reviewing
Project Evaluation: National Science Centre Poland
Journal Articles Manuscript Review: American Ethnologist; Cultural Anthropology; South Asia: Journal of South Asia; Environmental History; Humanimalia; Behavioural Processes; Animal Cognition; Anthropology Today; ISIS; Conservation and Society; Topoi; Society & Animals; The Australian Journal of Anthropology.
Doctoral Thesis Examination: University of Milan
Invited Talks, Public Lectures, or Roundtables
2023 April 25. Human-elephant co-existence in Assam. Department of Environmental Studies, Masaryk University.
2021 April 14. Ethnographic research on interspecies teamwork. Institute of Environmental Studies, Charles University
Conference and Workshop Organisation
2024 June, 23-26. Uncertain methods, elusive lives: exploring the methodological and relational horizons of doing research with more-than-humans. Panel session. European Association of Social Anthropology (EASA) Biannual Conference. Barcelona. (Co-conveners O’Mahony, K., Chu, K.)
2024 June, 16-19. Symbiotic methods: more-than-human companions for knowing. Panel session. European Association for the Study of Science and Technology (EASST)/Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) Joint Conference. Amsterdam. (Co-conveners O’Mahony, K., Szczygielska, M., Kuen, L.)
2023 March 21-23. Pig Worlds and Porcine Multiplicity in the Anthropocene. Panel session at Finish Anthropological Society Conference 2023, Relations and Beyond. (Co-conveners O’Mahony, K., Vate, V.)
2022 November 27-29. What is hunting? Institute of Ethnology, CAS. Prague. (Co-convenors Broz, L., Gieser, T., von Essen, E.)
2021 May 19. Peer Review: Practical and Critical Perspectives. Institute of Ethnology, CAS. Prague.
2020 December 13-15. Composing Worlds with Elephants: a multidisciplinary dialogue on human-elephant relations. Online, 3-day conference. (Co-convenors Lainé, N., Rahmat, K.)
2019 September 11-12. Belonging, Prosperity and Security in a More-than-human world. Institute of Ethnology, CAS. Prague. (Co-convenors Broz, L., Vaté, V, Capponi, G.)
Public Outreach and Online Essays
2023 The Elephant Eclectic – A multidisciplinary bibliography of the Asian elephant - https://www.elephanteclectic.com/
2022 Szczygielska M, Kuen L.J., O’Mahony K, and Keil P. G. Feral ethics. Thinking feral with pigs. New Alphabet School (HKW).
