Gregory Gullette

Dr. Gregory Gullette received his Ph.D. from the University of Georgia in environmental anthropology and is currently a professor at Georgia Gwinnett College. He has conducted ethnographic fieldwork in Costa Rica, Mexico, New Zealand, Thailand and the United States. He is primarily interested in issues of development, migration, political ecology, and political economy. Much of his research examines the ways in which social systems are structured by inequalities, political-economic power differentials and environmental conflicts such as determining access to natural resources. For the past decade, he has worked in Thailand examining issues surrounding rural-urban migration, state development and class-structures within domestic mobilities.

While Gullette’s work has most substantively been in Mexico and Thailand, all his work is anchored in the applied social sciences and in empirically grounded ethnographic research. For example, he has conducted applied research in the United States on anti-tobacco health campaigns and the biosocial effects of immigrant and refugee exclusion, in New Zealand on sustainable forestry, in Mexico on state development, and in Thailand on rural-urban migration and state urbanization policies. In fact, Gullette was awarded Fellow Status by the Society for Applied Anthropology in recognition of his work in application and engagement with social problems.

These research experiences and connections with a critically engaged anthropology have also informed Gullette’s teaching. His central belief is that education should actively engage students in the examination of intellectual traditions and scientific research, while simultaneously offering students the opportunity to examine their cultural values, to engage with an increasingly diverse society, to empathize with those from different backgrounds, and to understand the complex relationships formed within socio-environmental systems. Such forms of critical engagement prove increasingly important as those with (in some cases wildly) different levels of power influence and shape how we think about our place in the world. His teaching is directed at creating independent, self-aware individuals, yet those cognizant of their placement in global contexts, of their effects on others, of their role in nature-society interactions, and of their relationships with different cultures.

Sample Publications

• Gullette, Gregory, Paporn Thebpanya, and Sayamon Singto. 2022. Socioeconomic and Livelihood Impacts within Bangkok’s Expanding Metropolitan Region. Buildings and Cities 3(1): 808–823.  
• Gullette, Gregory and Marni Brown. 2021. Experiential Learning on the Inequities Confronted by Immigrant and Refugee Communities. General Anthropology 28(1):1-8.
• Gullette, Gregory. 2021. ‘Development, Migration, and the Prospects of Betterment’. In Handbook of Culture and Migration.  Jeffrey Cohen and Ibrahim Sirkeci, eds. Pp. 274-286. Northampton: Edward Elgar Publishing.
• Gullette, Gregory. 2019. Constrained Urban Aspirations: Development, Structural Precarity, and Inequalities within Thai Migration. Asian and Pacific Migration Journal 28(3): 300-323.
• Gullette, Gregory and Sayamon Singto. 2018. Urban Expansion, Agrarian Shifts, and Decentralized Governance in Thailand’s Isaan Region. Culture, Agriculture, Food and Environment 40(1): 4-14.
• Gullette, Gregory, Paporn Thebpanya, and Sayamon Singto. 2017. Assessing Urban Development Policies in Thailand’s Transitional Spaces through Combined Ethnography and GIS Mapping. Human Organization 76(3): 227-239.
• Gullette, Gregory and Sayamon Singto. 2015. Effects of Urban Expansion and Cultural Hierarchies on Labour Strategies within Thailand’s Rural-Urban Interface. Journal of Population and Social Studies 23(2): 146-167.
• Gullette, Gregory. 2014. Rural-Urban Hierarchies, Status Boundaries, and Labour Mobilities in Thailand. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 40(8): 1254-1274.
• Gullette, Gregory. 2013. The Role of Urbanity, Status, and Identity on Migrant Remittance Management and Rural Development Potentials in Thailand. Human Organization 72(2): 132-143.
• Gullette, Gregory. 2012. State Tourism, Labour Mobilities, and Remittance Potentials within Huatulco, Oaxaca. International Journal of Tourism Anthropology 2(4): 299-317.
• Gullette, Gregory. 2007. Migration and Tourism Development in Huatulco, Oaxaca. Current Anthropology 48(4): 603-610.

Sample Grants

• 2023: USG Textbook Transformation Grant, along with Drs. Jenna Andrews-Swann, Kathryn Deeley and MaryBeth Chrostowsky, “Introduction to Anthropology: Common Text Creation” – $30,000
• 2022: Seed Grant, along with Dr. Jenna Andrews-Swann, Georgia Gwinnett College, “Food Insecurity and Sovereignty Initiatives in the Atlanta Metropolitan Region” – $4,000
• 2019: USG Textbook Transformation Grants, “Introduction to Anthropology: Constructing Open Access and No-Cost Materials” – $10,800
• 2018: Community Innovations Project, Georgia Gwinnett College, “Syndemics and the biosocial experiences of structural inequities among refugee and immigrant communities” – $6,795
• 2018: SEED Grant, Georgia Gwinnett College, “Urban (re)Development, Migration, and Aspirations in Bangkok, Thailand” – $3,000
• 2015: Curriculum Innovation Grant, Missouri State University, Faculty Center for Teaching and Learning, “Ethnographic practice and methodological training for students in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology” – $5,000
• 2013: SCU Research Grant, “Decentralized Urbanization, Labor Migration, and Sustainability in Samut Prakan and Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand” – $5,000
• 2012: Thomas Terry Grant, “Decentralized Urbanization, Environmentalism, and Migration in Bangkok’s Peri-urban region of Samut Prakan” – $2,800
• 2009: Technology Steering Committee Grant, “Enhancing Ethnographic Training and Expanding Student Resources in the Departments of Anthropology and Sociology” – $64,806
• 2008: Georgia State University Internal Grant “Constructing the Ethnographic Lab and Expanding Field Resources” – $48,569

• Doctorate – environmental anthropology – University of Georgia