Australian-Canadian writer, anthropologist, big-wall climber, soldier. (But mainly, I just read too many Wilfred Thesiger and HW Tilman books at an impressionable age).

I studied for a BA in foreign languages (Arabic and French) and security studies before completing a Master of Anthropology – both at the Australian National University. While at ANU, I studied Arabic abroad in Syria as an Ethel Tory Language Scholar.

I am currently a PhD researcher at King’s College London where I am supervised by Drs. Jonathan Hill and Mike Martin.

My research and writing focuses on political, ecological and evolutionary perspectives in anthropology; interactions between state actors and remote-living peoples (desert and mountain societies) in High Asia and North Africa; conflict ethnography; and the microsociology of war crimes.

Other research interests include aboriginal oral traditions and storytelling; the sociopolitical construction of “indigeneity”; small arms trafficking and the anthropology of borders; global and local forms of Islam; and the evolution of jihadism in a hyper-connected world.

I’ve conducted fieldwork in fairly diverse locations – all over the Middle East and North Africa, the Thailand/Burma border, Cape York (Aboriginal Australia) and British Columbia.

See the “Writing” tab for a complete record of my published work. Content on this blog is also permanently catalogued by the National Library of Australia and is available here.

I have a working proficiency with the French and Arabic languages and a basic knowledge of Kuuk Thaayorre. I have provided and can provide a translation service.

I have a Twitter feed which used to feature daily haiku but now tends towards current affairs. My LinkedIn profile can be found here.