DrGillian Tan

My current research focuses on two broad and interconnected themes: 1) human-nonhuman relationships with a particular focus on Tibetan nomadic pastoralists, and 2) theoretical and practical intersections between ecology and religiosity. My publications on human-nonhuman relationships for Tibetan nomads include an article on the ritual of freeing life (tshe thar) among Tibetan nomads, and writings on smoke as experienced and framed by Tibetan nomads and vernacular Tibetan philosophy. I have also published an article on nomad-plant relationships. On the intersections between ecology and religiosity, I have published an article that argues for theoretical intersections between the concepts of 'ecology' and 'religiosity' as one way to transcend the dualism of mind-body within the social sciences. I have co-edited a special issue in Études Mongoles, Sibériennes, Centrasiatiques et Tibétaines on everyday religion among pastoralists of High and Inner Asia. I am presently involved in an Australian Research Council Discovery Project, which will produce an ethnographic and environmental history of waterways in the Third Pole, framed within the specific articulation of climate change.

Anthropology of Nature; Interface between religion and ecology; Nomadic pastoralism and relationship with the state