Nick works at the intersection of social, psychological and medical anthropology, with particular regional interests in Indonesia, the Malay World, and Aotearoa New Zealand.
He is currently completing a major ethnographic study of hypnosis and hypnotherapy, based on over 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork with hypnosis practitioners in Indonesia. Supported by the ESRC, this project aims to understand how the dissemination of hypnopsychological discourse is shaping social life in contemporary Indonesia, whilst using ethnographic perspectives from Indonesia to develop new ways of understanding hypnosis and hypnotherapy as anthropological objects, and to revisit classic anthropological theories of symbolic healing. He has already published several articles and book chapters on this research, including ‘Suggestions of Power: Searching for Efficacy in Indonesia's Hypnosis Boom’, which was awarded the 2019 Stirling Prize for Best Published Work in Psychological Anthropology.
This research project builds on longstanding relationships with people and places in Indonesia, where Nick has been conducting research since 2005. His earlier work focused on how subjectivities and social relations were being shaped by the political changes following the end of Suharto’s authoritarian New Order – including political decentralisation, democratisation, and the increasing recognition given to Indonesia’s ethnic and religious minorities.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Nick co-founded the Care And Responsibility Under Lockdown (CARUL) Collective, alongside Dr Sharyn Graham Davies, then based at Auckland University of Technology. CARUL was a 17-person interdisciplinary research team that investigated the impact of pandemic control measures upon people living in Aotearoa New Zealand (and, to a lesser extent, the UK). The team has published widely on issues ranging from policing to funerary practices. Their research into multi-household ‘bubble’ arrangements helped inform international policy debates about pandemic control measures, and received coverage in outlets including BBC News, LBC, New Scientist, and The Telegraph. Nick himself summarised some of the key findings of the study in an op-ed for The Guardian.
Aside from these larger projects, Nick has also written work making interventions into anthropological theories of achievement, competition, intellectual exchange, Islamic authority, and sociality. He also has interests in how performance, photography, and art can be used to convey anthropological knowledge – and the opportunities that emerging digital technologies offer for anthropological representation.
Nick welcomes enquiries from prospective graduate students working in these and related areas. He would be particularly excited to work with students whose work is based in Indonesia and the Malay World, or who are conducting research on his core theoretical interests: hypnosis and consciousness, psychotherapy, COVID-19 and its legacies, achievement and motivation, and political subjectivity.