Thomas Gibson’s first field research project concerned the relationship between the egalitarian and pacifist values of the Buid, an indigenous people inhabiting the highlands of Mindoro, Philippines, and the hierarchical and aggressive values of the Christian and Muslim societies found in the lowlands (1986).  He followed this up with a comparative study of attitudes toward violence and aggression among shifting cultivators throughout Southeast Asia, showing that they varied according to historical exposure of different groups to raiding by lowland and coastal societies (1990).

Jennifer Gaynor's research examines the constitution of maritime worlds, especially the spatial dimensions of the maritime, through the analysis of material practices, forms of representation, and institutional structures.

Pilapa Esara Carroll is an associate professor of anthropology at SUNY-Brockport. Her areas of specialization include issues of displacement and refugee resettlement, ethnographic documentary production, gender inequality and social difference, social practices of marriage and intimacy, processes of migration and identity negotiations, economic development and globalization, and Asia and its diasporas.

Christopher Bjork earned his PhD in educational anthropology at Stanford University. Certified to teach both elementary and secondary school, he has worked as a classroom teacher in Japan and the United States.

Matthew Amster is a cultural anthropologist and filmmaker with extensive experience working in Borneo and, more recently, has started a new project in Denmark.

His research in Borneo was among the Kelabit of Sarawak, with special focus on religious conversion and change, urban ethnicity, gossip and social networks, and the key role of the international border in Kelabit rural life. In 2008, he completed his first film, “The Internet and the Water Buffalo,” about the introduction of the internet into the interior highlands of Borneo.

Ryadi Adityavarman is an associate professor in the Interior Architecture program at Colorado State University. He has a multidisciplinary background in architecture, interior design, and historic preservation with a particular focus in Indonesian architectural traditions. As a Rotary Peace Fellow, he is interested in global humanitarian and socio-cultural sustainability initiatives.