Staff profile

Paul Sillitoe has a background in both anthropology and agricultural science. His research interests focus on tropical farming systems and indigenous natural resource management strategies. He specialises in development and social change, subsistence and technology, land issues, human ecology and ethno-science. His regional interests focus on the Pacific in particular.

He has conducted extensive fieldwork in Papua New Guinea, where he first championed the competitive sociability of institutionalised exchange individualism, and he is currently involved in projects in South Asia, researching local agricultural knowledge and development programmes. He seeks to further the incorporation of indigenous knowledge in development, particularly in the context of sustainable livelihood initiatives and appropriate technologies.

Publications

See a full list of Prof Sillitoe's publications below.
www.dur.ac.uk/resources/profiles/140/Publications_PaulSillitoe.docx

• Melanesia and South Asia
• Development and social change
• Economic anthropology and tribal socio-political orders
• Environmental anthropology and natural resources management
• Human ecology and ethnosciences
• Indigenous knowledge and participating development
• Livelihood and technology

• Social Anthropology

• Contextual instantiation of indigenous domain knowledge: An e-science approach
• Indigenous knowledge methodologies for natural resource research
• Negotiations and mining in PNG
• Towards an engaged anthropology: Advancing methodological approaches to indigenous knowledge research and community well-being
• What is traditional about Piaroa traditional knowledge?

• Wola Files

• 2009: Qatar Shell Professorial Chair in Sustainable Development in the Sociology Program of the Department of Social Sciences in Qatar University:

Available for media contact about:

• Anthropology: Tribal peoples.
• Anthropology: International development, esp natural resources
• International development: International development, esp natural resources
• Anthropology: Oceania - esp. New Guinea
• Anthropology: Subsistence farming
• Environment: Natural resources management
• Plants & agriculture: Natural resources management
• Environment: Sustainable development
• Geography: Sustainable development
• European & other international expertise:
• Australasia & the Pacific:
• Science & Technology:
• People: Civilisation & land use:

Authored book

• Sillitoe, Paul (2017). Built in Niugini: Constructions in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea. Sean Kingston Publishing.
• Sillitoe, Paul (2017). Made in Niugini: Technology in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea. Sean Kingston Publishing.
• Sillitoe, P. (ed.) (2017). Indigenous knowledge:enhancing its contribution to natural resources management. CABI.
• Sillitoe, P. (2010). From land to mouth: the agricultural "economy" of the Wola of the New Guinea highlands. New Haven & London: Yale University Press.
• Sillitoe, P. & Sillitoe, J. (2009). Grass-clearing man a factional ethnography of life in the New Guinea Highlands. Waveland Press.
• Sillitoe, P. (2003). Managing animals in New Guinea: Preying the Game in the Highlands. London: Routledge.
• Sillitoe, P. Stewart, P.J. & Strathern, A. (2002). Horticulture in Papua New Guinea: Case Studies from the Southern and Western Highlands. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh.
• Sillitoe, P. (1996). A place against time: land and environment in the Papua New Guinea highlands. Amsterdam: Harwood Academic (Gordon & Breach).

Chapter in book

• Sillitoe, Paul (2021). Soil ethnoecology. In Handbook of Indigenous Environmental Knowledge: Global Themes and Practice. Thornton, Thomas F. & Bhagwat, Shonil Abingdon: Routledge.
• Sillitoe, Paul (2016). The Knowing in Indigenous Knowledge: Alternative Ways to View Development, Largely from a New Guinea Highlands’ Perspective. In Ethnic and Cultural Dimensions of Knowledge. Springer. 8: 129-163.
• Sillitoe, Paul (2015). Indigenous Knowledge. In The Ashgate Research Companion to Anthropology. Strathern, A & Stewart, P. (eds) Ashgate Publishing. 343-368.
• Sillitoe, P & Filer, C (2014). What Local People Want with Forests: Ideologies and Attitudes in Papua New Guinea. In Natural Resource Extraction and Indigenous Livelihoods: Development Challenges in an Era of Globalisation. Gilberthorpe, E & Hilson, G Farnham: Ashgate Publishing Ltd. 201-220.
• Sillitoe, P. & Alam, M. (2012). ‘Why did the fish cross the road?’ Environmental uncertainty and local knowledge in Bangladesh. In Environmental Uncertainty and Local Knowledge: Southeast Asia as a Laboratory of Global Ecological Change. Hornidge, A-K. & Antweiler, C. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag. 145-183.
• Sillitoe, P. (2000). Indigenous knowledge development in Bangladesh: Present and future. In London: Intermediate Technology Publications & Dhaka: University Press. 3-20, 145-60, 161-177, 179-195.

Conference Proceeding

• Lyon, S.M., Sillitoe, P. & Wilson, R. (2005). Implementation of e-science tools for complex analysis of human-environmental interaction. First International Conference on e-Social Science, Manchester, NCeSS.

Edited book

• Sillitoe, P. Bicker, A. & Pottier, J. (2002). Participating in development: approaches to indigenous knowledge. ASA Monographs; 39. London: Routledge.

Journal Article

• Sillitoe, Paul (2021). Pigs in Rites: Rights in Pigs: Porcine Values in the Papua New Guinea Highlands. Anthropozoologica 56(8): 117-136.
• Koster, Jeremy, McElreath, Richard, Hill, Kim, Yu, Douglas, Shepard, Glenn, van Vliet, Nathalie, Gurven, Michael, Trumble, Benjamin, Bird, Rebecca Bliege, Bird, Douglas, Codding, Brian, Coad, Lauren, Pacheco-Cobos, Luis, Winterhalder, Bruce, Lupo, Karen, Schmitt, Dave, Sillitoe, Paul, Franzen, Margaret, Alvard, Michael, Venkataraman, Vivek, Kraft, Thomas, Endicott, Kirk, Beckerman, Stephen, Marks, Stuart A., Headland, Thomas, Pangau-Adam, Margaretha, Siren, Anders, Kramer, Karen, Greaves, Russell, Reyes-García, Victoria, Guèze, Maximilien, Duda, Romain, Fernández-Llamazares, Álvaro, Gallois, Sandrine, Napitupulu, Lucentezza, Ellen, Roy, Ziker, John, Nielsen, Martin R., Ready, Elspeth, Healey, Christopher & Ross, Cody (2020). The life history of human foraging: Cross-cultural and individual variation. Science Advances 6(26): eaax9070.
• Sillitoe, Paul (2018). Some Challenges of collaborative research with local knowledge. Antropologia Pubblica 4(1): 31-50.
• Sillitoe, P. (2018). Durham anthropology: a provincial history of a provisional discipline. History and Anthropology 29(2): 233-274.
• Sillitoe, P., Alshawi, A.A. & Al-Amir Hassan, A.K. (2010). Challenges to conservation: land use change and local participation in the Al Reem Biosphere Reserve, West Qatar. Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine 6(1): 28.
• Sillitoe, P. (2010). Trust in development: some implications of knowing in indigenous knowledge. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 16(1): 12-30.
• Sillitoe, P. (1999). Beating the boundaries: land tenure and identity in the Papua New Guinea Highlands. Journal of Anthropological Research 55(3): 331-360.
• Sillitoe, P. (1998). The development of indigenous knowledge: a new applied anthropology. Current Anthropology 39(2): 223-252.