Paul K. Gellert

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Current Research

My research program is focused primarily on the political economy of natural resources and development.  I have a long-standing interest in the role of states and firms in organizing and controlling Indonesia's timber sector.  Currently, I am developing a new research project on neo-liberalism and the politics of minerals, oil and gas in Indonesia. This project will address the question of Indonesia's reperipheralization in the world-economy as it deepens its reliance on raw materials exports.  It also will examine the uneven and somewhat unpredictable illiberal politics of liberalization.  Third, I have an interest in theory, including the intersection of social and natural forces and processes in "socionature" and the notion of human "capabilities."

Recent and Forthcoming Publications

Gellert, Paul K. forthcoming. “What’s New with the Old?: Scalar Dialectics and the Reorganization of Indonesia’s Timber Industry,” in Taking Southeast Asia to Market: Commodities, People and Nature in a Neoliberal Age, edited by Nancy L. Peluso and Joe Nevins. Cornell University Press. 

Gellert, Paul K. 2007. “From Managed to Free(r) Markets: Transnational and Regional Governance of Asian Timber,” The Annals of The American Academy of Political and Social Science. Volume 610 (March): 246-259.

Gellert, Paul K. 2006. “For a Sociology of Socionature: Ontology and a Commodity-Based Approach.” Pp. 65-92 in Nature, Raw Materials and Political Economy, edited by Paul Ciccantell, Gay Seidman and David A. Smith. Research in Rural Sociology and Development, Volume 10. Elsevier Science/JAI Press. 

Feldman, Shelley and Paul K. Gellert. 2006. “The Seductive Quality of Central Human Capabilities: Sociological Insights into Nussbaum and Sen’s Disagreement.” Economy and Society 35:3 (August) 423-452. 

Gellert, Paul K. 2005. “The Shifting Natures of ‘Development’: Growth, Crisis, and Recovery in Indonesia’s Forests.” World Development 33:8: 1349-1368.

Gellert, Paul K. 2005. “Oligarchy in the Timber Markets of Indonesia: From Apkindo to IBRA to the Future of the Forests.” Pp. 121-137 in Indonesia Update 2004: The Politics and Economics of Indonesia’s Natural Resources, edited by Budy P. Resosudarmo. Singapore: The Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, in collaboration with the Australian National University.

Gellert, Paul K. 2003. “Renegotiating a Timber Commodity Chain: Lessons from Indonesia on the Political Construction of Global Commodity Chains.” Sociological Forum 18:1 (March): 53-84.

Gellert, Paul K. and Barbara D. Lynch. 2003. “Megaprojects as Displacements.” International Social Science Journal No. 175 (March): 15-25.

Contact Information

Paul K. Gellert
Assistant Professor
Ph.D. 1998 University of Wisconsin-Madison

The University of Tennessee
911 McClung Tower
Knoxville, TN 37996-0430

Phone: 865-974-7023
E-Mail: pgellert@utk.edu