Anita Lundberg

Associate Professor Anita Lundberg is a cultural anthropologist who engages people and places of South East Asia, especially the Malay Archipelago. She is the Editor-in-Chief of eTropic journal and co-convenor of Tropics of the Imagination conference and facilitor of Academic Writing Retreats.

She has lead several research clusters. 'Living Cities:Tropical Imaginaries' is concerned with human experiences of cities through creative economies, urban myths, film, the tropical flaneuse, tropical gothic, smart city imaginaries and liminal spaces. 'Anthropology of Higher Education, concerns critical ethnography of higher education in the Malay archipelago. 'Material Poetics' involved ethnographic phenomenology of a Malay house and its garden of trees. 'Lamalerland' was an ethnographic study of a whaling hunting village in Eastern Indonesia.

Anita initiated the Tropical Philanthropy project, a study field trip and volunteering program for students that culminates in sharing knowledge through digital photographic exhibitions and public lectures. Study field trips included Laos, Sarawak in Borneo, and Bali. As she notes in an interview with the Straits Times, these field trips focus on 'local sustainable practices'.

Anita is the recipient of awards for outstanding research supervision, innovative research, and teaching. She has held numerous fellowships: LIA TransOceanik (CNRS, Collége de France, JCU); The Cairns Institute (TCI); Post-Doctoral Fellow, Cambridge University, UK; Guest Researcher, Maison Asie-Pacifique, Université de Provence, France; Visiting Fellow, Institute of the Malay World and Civilization, National University Malaysia. She has also been an Anthropologist-in-Residence at Rimbun Dahan, Malaysia.

Speaking engagements include: Keynote speaker 'Women and Social Transformation' Alagappa University India, and an invited public speaker at the Australian Parliament House, to the Malaysian Heritage Trust/UNESCO, the Indonesian Heritage Society and Australian National Maritime Museum. She has convened a think tank at The Cairns Institute, and a colloquium for the TransOceanik (CNRS, Collége de France, JCU). Anita has curated exhibitions in NY, LA, Paris and Sydney and her own research and theoretical, and artistic works have been exhibited at the Australian National Maritime Museum, the National Art Gallery of Malaysia and Alliance de Française.