About

I’m Alex Golub, an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Hawai’i Manoa. I have a BA in Anthropology from Reed College (1995) and an MA (1997) and Ph.D. (2006) in anthropology from the University of Chicago. My dissertation, entitled “Making the Ipili Feasible: Imagining Global and Local Actors at the Porgera Gold Mine, Papua New Guinea,” examines the relationship between indigenous land owners and the world-class Porgera Gold mine. My second research project focuses on conceptions of achievement, teamwork, and self in World of Warcraft.

Here is a picture of me:

I know, I know – it’s not cool to put a picture of yourself on your website unless it is really blurry and no one can see what you really look like. But this picture – for which Debby gets all the credit – just came out so well that I couldn’t resist. Taken outside my house in PNG during a welcome mumu for Debby (hence the bilas), I take a few moments out from the busy day of killing pigs and cooking sweet potato to double-check what exactly a communications-theoretic formulation of the lifeworld would entail. The Kings jersey indicates my alleigance to my home town. The marsupial fur, ferns, headband, plumage, facepaint, bow and arrows are all more or less what Porgerans wear when they are feeling nostalgic for the good old days.