C Gressier
Biographic Data
| ID | 67498 |
|---|---|
| NAME | C Gressier |
| GIVEN NAMES | C |
| FAMILY NAME | Gressier |
| SIGNATURE | GRESSIER C |
| AFFILIATIONS | The University of Western Australia |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6024-7767 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 21 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 56 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 21 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2011 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
The possibilities and perils of flirting in the field
Australia's new peasantry
Since settlement, colonial values of productivity and improvement have transformed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Country into a site of agricultural extraction. We examine the nascent peasantisation movement in Australia driven by small-scale farmers rejecting colonial capitalist agriculture within an agroecological transition. Our case studies explore how new peasants seek guidance from First Peoples and peasants in developing a politics…
Hunting, foraging and the pursuit of animal ontologies
Climate change and the ecological crisis are fueling growing critiques of human exceptionalism within calls to reconfigure human-nature relations. This paper explores how some self-provisioning hunters and foragers in Victoria, Australia are invoking animal ontologies within their attempts to decenter the human and create sustainable, emplaced lifestyles and diets. For this cohort, hands-on food provisioning serves as a means of re-constructing t…
Big Farmer
Short story: in an Australia of the near future, politicians, farmers, activists and the agribusiness industry face the unintended consequences of breeding huge, genetically modified pigs. Speculative fiction by Catie Gressier and Lauri Turner
Mutualism on Australian heritage breed farms
For millennia, humans and domesticated animals have lived interdependently. In return for shelter, feed and care, animals have provided people with diverse material and symbolic resources within high-stakes mutualistic relationships. However, mutualisms are always susceptible to 'cheaters', where one partner enjoys the benefits without providing adequate reciprocation. When considering mutualisms on an ethnographic scale, industrial agriculture's…
Mutualisms
Anthropology of mutualism
What might anthropology offer to our understanding of mutualistic relations? In making sense of these interspecies interactions, which, despite some costs, are ultimately beneficial to each partner species, zoological approaches operate at the level of populations on an adaptive scale. Anthropologists bring focus on individual actors and their subjective experiences within far more condensed temporospatial ethnographic timescales. This guest edit…
Realtalk
University students frequently use campus Facebook Confessions pages to engage with their peers about their university experiences. This article explores the utility of Confessions pages in providing novel data to aid the development of student services generally, and academic skills support in particular. Through a qualitative thematic analysis of five universities’ Facebook Confessions pages over five years, our research demonstrates that these…
Food as faith
Dietary regimes are frequently likened to religious movements on account of the fervor of advocates’ adherence, and their enthusiastic proselytizing. Yet, beyond this somewhat pejorative use of the metaphor, analysis of the quasi-religious nature of diets can provide a valuable window into the subjective experiences of individuals undertaking stringent dietary regimes. Among Australian Paleo dieters, the increase in chronic illness and obesity pr…
The limitations of research codes and contracts
Research among hunter-gatherers has often been exploitative, based on neo-colonial and/or contemporary socio-economic power imbalances. Consequently, research codes and contracts have been created with the important goal of empowering them; such instruments seem to be on the rise globally. In this article, we focus on this phenomenon among the San of Southern Africa, and we contribute to the professional and public debate on such formalising inst…
The Noble Savage Reconfigured
Tourists to Africa covet close encounters with dangerous wildlife, revelling in the simulation of the primal risks of the savannah, and yet they expect to be kept safe. Similarly, many tourists wish to engage with exotic local people, but in ways that ensure they feel comfortable socially and physically. Safari guides in the Okavango Delta fulfil these desires by facilitating close encounters with wildlife during luxury camping safaris, while bec…
Belonging, Indigeneity, Land and Nature in Southern Africa under Neoliberal Capitalism
In November 2017, President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe stepped down after ruling the country for 37 years. He was replaced by his former deputy, Emmerson Mnangagwa. In January 2018, when Mnangagwa h
They’re coming
This paper explores the social reproduction of precarity among white South African migrants in Australia. Building on Griffiths and Prozesky’s elucidation of the white South African imaginary and its role in triggering emigration, we draw on ethnographic data on white South Africans living in Melbourne to argue that our informants reproduce what Hage terms a ‘white nation fantasy’. In documenting the ways our informants’ migration experiences can…
Going feral
Feral animals are commonly constructed as the scourge of the Australian landscape. The transgressive act of introduced, domestic animals going wild elicits strong emotive responses within the community, often conceived in a kind of Freudian spectre of das unheimliche (the uncanny/unhomely), as the once familiar becomes uncontrolled, strange and frightening. Meanwhile, exponential global growth in human populations, and the resulting strain on the…
A History of Conservation in Botswana's Okavango Delta
This fascinating account of the formation of the Okavango delta’s premier tourist attraction is described by its author, Maitseo Bolaane, as a biography of the Moremi game reserve (MGR) (p. i). Lik
At Home in the Okavango
At Home in the Okavango
An ethnographic portrayal of the lives of white citizens of the Okavango Delta, Botswana, this book examines their relationships with the natural and social environments of the region. In response to the insecurity of their position as a European-descended minority in a postcolonial African state, Gressier argues that white Batswana have developed cultural values and practices that have allowed them to attain high levels of belonging. Adventure i…
“White Skin and an African Soul”
Experiential Autochthony in the Okavango Delta, Botswana
The white Batswana of the Okavango identify as African, are strongly nationalistic and express deep senses of belonging to the social and physical environments of their birth and upbringing. Yet, claims to belonging by white people to extra-European territories are often perceived as inauthentic at best and neocolonial at worst. This raises the question of how the empirical realities of such connections can be analytically rendered without threat…
An Elephant in the Room
Safari hunters' acute awareness of the widely held negative perceptions of their practice has led to their development of strong justifications and defensive assertions in favour of hunting. Far from being a primarily destructive practice, they claim that safari hunting in the Okavango Delta, Botswana, can be seen as an exemplary form of ecotourism, which benefits local communities, facilitates environmental conservation and provides the ultimate…
Safaris into Subjectivity
The elite safari lodges in Botswana's Okavango Delta provide an intriguing site through which to explore processes of identity construction, as people from vastly different backgrounds meet and explore ontological possibilities through and against each other. Drawing on a dinner table dispute between an African American tourist and his white Motswana guide, I explore contested notions of what constitutes African identities. The encounter shows th…
Belonging, Indigeneity, Land and Nature in Southern Africa under Neoliberal Capitalism
In November 2017, President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe stepped down after ruling the country for 37 years. He was replaced by his former deputy, Emmerson Mnangagwa. In January 2018, when Mnangagwa h
An Elephant in the Room
Safari hunters' acute awareness of the widely held negative perceptions of their practice has led to their development of strong justifications and defensive assertions in favour of hunting. Far from being a primarily destructive practice, they claim that safari hunting in the Okavango Delta, Botswana, can be seen as an exemplary form of ecotourism, which benefits local communities, facilitates environmental conservation and provides the ultimate…
Experiential Autochthony in the Okavango Delta, Botswana
The white Batswana of the Okavango identify as African, are strongly nationalistic and express deep senses of belonging to the social and physical environments of their birth and upbringing. Yet, claims to belonging by white people to extra-European territories are often perceived as inauthentic at best and neocolonial at worst. This raises the question of how the empirical realities of such connections can be analytically rendered without threat…
The limitations of research codes and contracts
Research among hunter-gatherers has often been exploitative, based on neo-colonial and/or contemporary socio-economic power imbalances. Consequently, research codes and contracts have been created with the important goal of empowering them; such instruments seem to be on the rise globally. In this article, we focus on this phenomenon among the San of Southern Africa, and we contribute to the professional and public debate on such formalising inst…
Safaris into Subjectivity
The elite safari lodges in Botswana's Okavango Delta provide an intriguing site through which to explore processes of identity construction, as people from vastly different backgrounds meet and explore ontological possibilities through and against each other. Drawing on a dinner table dispute between an African American tourist and his white Motswana guide, I explore contested notions of what constitutes African identities. The encounter shows th…
Food as faith
Dietary regimes are frequently likened to religious movements on account of the fervor of advocates’ adherence, and their enthusiastic proselytizing. Yet, beyond this somewhat pejorative use of the metaphor, analysis of the quasi-religious nature of diets can provide a valuable window into the subjective experiences of individuals undertaking stringent dietary regimes. Among Australian Paleo dieters, the increase in chronic illness and obesity pr…
Australia's new peasantry
Since settlement, colonial values of productivity and improvement have transformed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Country into a site of agricultural extraction. We examine the nascent peasantisation movement in Australia driven by small-scale farmers rejecting colonial capitalist agriculture within an agroecological transition. Our case studies explore how new peasants seek guidance from First Peoples and peasants in developing a politics…
The Noble Savage Reconfigured
Tourists to Africa covet close encounters with dangerous wildlife, revelling in the simulation of the primal risks of the savannah, and yet they expect to be kept safe. Similarly, many tourists wish to engage with exotic local people, but in ways that ensure they feel comfortable socially and physically. Safari guides in the Okavango Delta fulfil these desires by facilitating close encounters with wildlife during luxury camping safaris, while bec…
Hunting, foraging and the pursuit of animal ontologies
Climate change and the ecological crisis are fueling growing critiques of human exceptionalism within calls to reconfigure human-nature relations. This paper explores how some self-provisioning hunters and foragers in Victoria, Australia are invoking animal ontologies within their attempts to decenter the human and create sustainable, emplaced lifestyles and diets. For this cohort, hands-on food provisioning serves as a means of re-constructing t…
Mutualism on Australian heritage breed farms
For millennia, humans and domesticated animals have lived interdependently. In return for shelter, feed and care, animals have provided people with diverse material and symbolic resources within high-stakes mutualistic relationships. However, mutualisms are always susceptible to 'cheaters', where one partner enjoys the benefits without providing adequate reciprocation. When considering mutualisms on an ethnographic scale, industrial agriculture's…
Safaris into Subjectivity
The elite safari lodges in Botswana's Okavango Delta provide an intriguing site through which to explore processes of identity construction, as people from vastly different backgrounds meet and explore ontological possibilities through and against each other. Drawing on a dinner table dispute between an African American tourist and his white Motswana guide, I explore contested notions of what constitutes African identities. The encounter shows th…
Experiential Autochthony in the Okavango Delta, Botswana
The white Batswana of the Okavango identify as African, are strongly nationalistic and express deep senses of belonging to the social and physical environments of their birth and upbringing. Yet, claims to belonging by white people to extra-European territories are often perceived as inauthentic at best and neocolonial at worst. This raises the question of how the empirical realities of such connections can be analytically rendered without threat…
An Elephant in the Room
Safari hunters' acute awareness of the widely held negative perceptions of their practice has led to their development of strong justifications and defensive assertions in favour of hunting. Far from being a primarily destructive practice, they claim that safari hunting in the Okavango Delta, Botswana, can be seen as an exemplary form of ecotourism, which benefits local communities, facilitates environmental conservation and provides the ultimate…
At Home in the Okavango
At Home in the Okavango
An ethnographic portrayal of the lives of white citizens of the Okavango Delta, Botswana, this book examines their relationships with the natural and social environments of the region. In response to the insecurity of their position as a European-descended minority in a postcolonial African state, Gressier argues that white Batswana have developed cultural values and practices that have allowed them to attain high levels of belonging. Adventure i…
“White Skin and an African Soul”
Going feral
Feral animals are commonly constructed as the scourge of the Australian landscape. The transgressive act of introduced, domestic animals going wild elicits strong emotive responses within the community, often conceived in a kind of Freudian spectre of das unheimliche (the uncanny/unhomely), as the once familiar becomes uncontrolled, strange and frightening. Meanwhile, exponential global growth in human populations, and the resulting strain on the…
A History of Conservation in Botswana's Okavango Delta
This fascinating account of the formation of the Okavango delta’s premier tourist attraction is described by its author, Maitseo Bolaane, as a biography of the Moremi game reserve (MGR) (p. i). Lik
They’re coming
This paper explores the social reproduction of precarity among white South African migrants in Australia. Building on Griffiths and Prozesky’s elucidation of the white South African imaginary and its role in triggering emigration, we draw on ethnographic data on white South Africans living in Melbourne to argue that our informants reproduce what Hage terms a ‘white nation fantasy’. In documenting the ways our informants’ migration experiences can…
Belonging, Indigeneity, Land and Nature in Southern Africa under Neoliberal Capitalism
In November 2017, President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe stepped down after ruling the country for 37 years. He was replaced by his former deputy, Emmerson Mnangagwa. In January 2018, when Mnangagwa h
The limitations of research codes and contracts
Research among hunter-gatherers has often been exploitative, based on neo-colonial and/or contemporary socio-economic power imbalances. Consequently, research codes and contracts have been created with the important goal of empowering them; such instruments seem to be on the rise globally. In this article, we focus on this phenomenon among the San of Southern Africa, and we contribute to the professional and public debate on such formalising inst…
The Noble Savage Reconfigured
Tourists to Africa covet close encounters with dangerous wildlife, revelling in the simulation of the primal risks of the savannah, and yet they expect to be kept safe. Similarly, many tourists wish to engage with exotic local people, but in ways that ensure they feel comfortable socially and physically. Safari guides in the Okavango Delta fulfil these desires by facilitating close encounters with wildlife during luxury camping safaris, while bec…
Realtalk
University students frequently use campus Facebook Confessions pages to engage with their peers about their university experiences. This article explores the utility of Confessions pages in providing novel data to aid the development of student services generally, and academic skills support in particular. Through a qualitative thematic analysis of five universities’ Facebook Confessions pages over five years, our research demonstrates that these…
Food as faith
Dietary regimes are frequently likened to religious movements on account of the fervor of advocates’ adherence, and their enthusiastic proselytizing. Yet, beyond this somewhat pejorative use of the metaphor, analysis of the quasi-religious nature of diets can provide a valuable window into the subjective experiences of individuals undertaking stringent dietary regimes. Among Australian Paleo dieters, the increase in chronic illness and obesity pr…
Big Farmer
Short story: in an Australia of the near future, politicians, farmers, activists and the agribusiness industry face the unintended consequences of breeding huge, genetically modified pigs. Speculative fiction by Catie Gressier and Lauri Turner
Mutualism on Australian heritage breed farms
For millennia, humans and domesticated animals have lived interdependently. In return for shelter, feed and care, animals have provided people with diverse material and symbolic resources within high-stakes mutualistic relationships. However, mutualisms are always susceptible to 'cheaters', where one partner enjoys the benefits without providing adequate reciprocation. When considering mutualisms on an ethnographic scale, industrial agriculture's…
Mutualisms
Anthropology of mutualism
What might anthropology offer to our understanding of mutualistic relations? In making sense of these interspecies interactions, which, despite some costs, are ultimately beneficial to each partner species, zoological approaches operate at the level of populations on an adaptive scale. Anthropologists bring focus on individual actors and their subjective experiences within far more condensed temporospatial ethnographic timescales. This guest edit…
Hunting, foraging and the pursuit of animal ontologies
Climate change and the ecological crisis are fueling growing critiques of human exceptionalism within calls to reconfigure human-nature relations. This paper explores how some self-provisioning hunters and foragers in Victoria, Australia are invoking animal ontologies within their attempts to decenter the human and create sustainable, emplaced lifestyles and diets. For this cohort, hands-on food provisioning serves as a means of re-constructing t…
Australia's new peasantry
Since settlement, colonial values of productivity and improvement have transformed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Country into a site of agricultural extraction. We examine the nascent peasantisation movement in Australia driven by small-scale farmers rejecting colonial capitalist agriculture within an agroecological transition. Our case studies explore how new peasants seek guidance from First Peoples and peasants in developing a politics…
The possibilities and perils of flirting in the field
Sociology (15 works) · Geography (13 works) · Political science (10 works) · Law (8 works) · Ecology (7 works) · Geographies of human-animal interactions (7 works) · Anthropological Studies and Insights (6 works) · Anthropology (6 works) · Archaeology (6 works) · Politics (6 works)