Rate My Professor Gerhard Hoffstaedter

Gerhard Hoffstaedter is an Associate Professor in the School of Social Science at the University of Queensland, where he serves as Major Convenor for Anthropology. He holds a PhD in anthropology and sociology from La Trobe University and previous degrees in Social Anthropology and Politics/International Relations from the University of Kent. His academic career includes significant fellowships such as the Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) from 2014 to 2017 and the Lee Kong Chian NUS-Stanford Fellowship on Contemporary Southeast Asia from 2023 to 2024 at the National University of Singapore and Stanford University's Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center. Hoffstaedter is a social anthropologist specialising in migration, refugee protection, and religious politics in Southeast Asia, with particular expertise in Malaysia's treatment of displaced populations and Muslim identity formation. His research interests encompass political anthropology, development studies, refugee and immigration policy, religion-state relations, urban refugee experiences, faith and spirituality, and participant observation in sensitive contexts. He directs the University of Queensland's MOOC 'World101x: Anthropology of Current World Issues'.

Hoffstaedter authored Modern Muslim Identities: Negotiating Religion and Ethnicity in Malaysia (NIAS Press, 2011) and co-edited Urban Refugees: Challenges in Protection, Services and Policy (Routledge, 2015), along with volumes on human security published by Allen & Unwin/Routledge. His prolific output features 45 journal articles, 33 book chapters, seven conference papers, 40 newspaper articles, and contributions to major reference works including the SAGE Encyclopedia of Sociology of Religion (2020) and The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology (2018). Key recent publications include 'Deadly Sea Passages: Navigating Risks and Uncertainties Aboard Rohingya Refugee Boats' (Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 2026, with Antje Missbach), 'Anthropology as Vocation: Positionality, Disposition, and the Interstitial to Understand and Change the World' (Anthropological Forum, 2025, with Lee Wilson and Sally Babidge), and chapters such as 'The (Un)Official Refugee Protection Regimes in Malaysia: What is the Way Forward?' (Refugee Protection in Southeast Asia, Berghahn Books, 2025) and 'Survival and Deferred Place-Making at Sea' ((Un)Settling Place, Berghahn Books, 2024). He serves as book review editor for Southeast Asia in Asian Ethnicity.