William Rollason

Qualifications

• BA 1^st Hons, University of London LSE (2002)
• PhD in Social Anthropology, University of Manchester (2008)

Personal Biography

Will received his PhD from the University of Manchester in 2008. His thesis was based on eighteen months of ethnographic fieldwork on the island of Panapompom in southeast Papua New Guinea (PNG) between 2004 and 2006. His fieldwork focussed on young men, following their involvement in a newly established football association, and their work diving for the edible sea cucumber that local people make into bêche-de-mer – a luxury food for export.

His thesis has been published under the title, We are Playing Football: Sport and Postcolonial Subjectivity on Panapompom Island, Papua New Guinea by Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Will’s current research interests focus on the role of ideas about the future in shaping social life. He is currently editing a volume entitled Future Selves in the Pacific: projects, politics and interests to be published by Berghahn. Will has recently begun a new research project in Rwanda, focussing on young people’s aspirations for the future in relation to urban development.

Research Overview

I have undertaken ethnographic research in both Papua New Guinea and Rwanda, focussing on youth: football and marine resource harvesting in PNG; motorcycle taxi drivers and youth migration in Rwanda. These sites and projects are connected by one question: how anthropologists retain their commitment to ethnographic knowledge imprisoning our collaborators in the socio-cultural matrices that make them comprehensible? This overarching project has led me to pursue innovative interpretive strategies, inspired by the young people I have worked with, questioning the role of culture in anthropological analyses and proposing aspirations and projects for the future as an alternative framework for understanding.

Member, Centre for Anthropological Research on Childhood, Youth and Education (CARCYE) 

Current Projects

Brunel Research Initiative and Enterprise Fund
Urban development, youth and the future in Kigali, Rwanda
£15,000
2011 - 2012
Will Rollason (PI)

The Future: a Methodological Challenge for Anthropology
2008 - 2012
Will Rollason (PI)

Recently Completed Projects

ESRC
Football, Race and the Postcolony in Papua New Guinea
Fees plus maintenance
2004 - 2008
Will Rollason (PI)

PhD Supervision

Holly Collison: The Seduction of Football: Reconciliation, Rehabilitation and Reconstruction, The role of football in Post Conflict Liberia; Oct 2009 -

Undergraduate Programmes

Module convenor

• Political and Economic Issues in Anthropology

Module contributor

• Introduction to Social Anthropology

• Admissions tutor