Dr. Catherine Allerton

Biography

Catherine Allerton is an anthropologist whose research interests center on materialities and mobilities within everyday life. Her work delves into themes of place, relatedness, and childhood migration, particularly within island Southeast Asia. Allerton has conducted extensive ethnographic fieldwork, including in a two-placed village in Flores, Indonesia, and the capital city of Sabah, East Malaysia. Her early research in Manggarai, eastern Indonesia, has contributed significantly to the understanding of kinship and house societies, illuminating the meanings associated with domestic spaces in anthropology. Her publication, 'Potent Landscapes' (2013), offers a phenomenological analysis of the connections between rooms, houses, and marriage paths, while also documenting the political and religious histories of landscapes. She has emphasized the importance of children as serious research participants, as seen in her edited volume 'Children: Ethnographic Encounters' (2016). Allerton has also critically examined issues of undocumented status among children, arguing that the lack of citizenship is intricately tied to social and moral recognition rather than merely legalistic frameworks. Her ongoing work, including a manuscript titled 'Impossible Children,' explores the moral economies of belonging in the context of migrant experiences in Malaysia. Allerton is highly engaged in supervising PhD candidates interested in kinship, gender, migration, and the complexities of childhood in contemporary contexts.

Research Interests

Experience