Catherine Allerton

Professor Catherine Allerton is a faculty member in the Department of Anthropology at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). She specializes in the materialities and mobilities of everyday life, with a focus on place, kinship, childhood, migration, and temporalities in island Southeast Asia. Her fieldwork spans a two-placed village in Flores, Indonesia, and Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, East Malaysia.

Her research emphasizes interdisciplinary ethnographic methods, particularly involving child participants to challenge adult-centric approaches. She launched the 'Childhood in the Migrant City' exhibition using child-taken photographs from her ESRC-sponsored research. Current projects include exploring discordant temporalities between migration systems and childhood development, as well as completing a book manuscript on moral economies of belonging.

Key research interests include the social and political dimensions of landscapes, the anthropology of children, and the impacts of legal status on marginalized youth. She teaches an LSE course on 'Children and Youth in Contemporary Ethnography' and actively supervises PhD students focusing on childhood, migration, citizenship, and Southeast Asian studies. Her work addresses exclusionary practices tied to race, religion, and legal frameworks in Malaysia and Indonesia.

Languages spoken include Bahasa Manggarai, English, Indonesian, and Malay. No part-time status is mentioned, indicating full-time faculty commitment.