Tom Selwyn is Professorial Research Associate at SOAS and a Visiting Professor at Breda University, The Netherlands, and Bethlehem University, Palestine. He was awarded a Leverhulme Emeritus Professorial Research Fellowship in 2014.
He is widely published in the field of the anthropology of tourism/pilgrimage/cultural heritage with regional interests in the Mediterranean, in particular Palestine/Israel. He directed/co-directed four major research and development projects in the Mediterranean region for the European Commission between 1990 and 2010 and founded the MA in the Anthropology of Travel, Tourism and Pilgrimage (ATTP) at SOAS in 2010. He co-convenes the SOAS ATTP summer school, was awarded the Lucy Mair medal by the Royal Anthropological Institute in 2009, and was Hon. Librarian of the RAI library collection at the British Museum for a decade.
He is co-editor (with Nicola Frost) of the series "Articulating Journeys: Festivals, Memorials, and Homecomings" for Berghahn publishers and co-editor of Travelling Towards Home (2018) in that series. His recent publications include “Tourism, Travel, and Pilgrimage” in H. Callan (ed), International Encyclopedia of Anthropology (Wiley, 2018); “Brexit, Grenfell, Windrush, and the mooring, un-mooring, and re-mooring of home” in Ethnoscripts (2019); “The politics of Palestinian suffering, commemoration, and belonging” (review article) in JRAI (2020); Foreword to H. Andrews (ed), Brexit and Tourism: Travel, Borders and Identity (Channel View, 2020); and “Why People Travel” (Independent Travel Commission, 2021).
The Tourist as Juggler in a Hall of Mirrors: Tourist brochures, social relations, and philosophical positions
Selwyn, Tom (2010). In: Watson, S., (eds.) and Waterton, E., (eds.), Culture, Heritage and Representation: Perspectives on Visuality and the Past. Farnham: Ashgate
The Politics of European Co-operation: An account of an EC TEMPUS project in Bosnia-Herzegovina
Selwyn, Tom and Karkut, Jonathan (2006). In: Burns, Peter M., (eds.) and Novelli, M., (eds.), Tourism and Politics: global frameworks and local realities. Amsterdam: Elsevier
Selwyn, Tom (2004). In: Selwyn, Tom, (eds.) and Boissevain, Jeremy, (eds.), Contesting the Foreshore: Politics and tourism on the coast. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, pp 11-35
Selwyn, Tom (2004). In: Selwyn, Tom, (eds.) and Boissevain, Jeremy, (eds.), Contesting the Foreshore: Politics and tourism on the coast. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, pp 35-61
Selwyn, Tom (2001). In: Lashley, C., (eds.) and Morrison, Alison, (eds.), In Search of Hospitality: Theoretical Perspectives and Debates. Burlington: Elsevier
Hanefors, Monica and Selwyn, Tom (2000). In: Hitchcock, Michael, (eds.) and Teague, Ken, (eds.), Souvenirs: The material culture of tourism. Aldershot: Ashgate, pp 253-283
Darlecarlian Masques: The many voices of a single souvenir
Selwyn, Tom and Hanefors, Monica (2000). In: Hitchcock, Michael, (eds.) and Teague, Ken, (eds.), Souvenirs: the material culture of tourism. Aldershot: Ashgate
The Marketisation of Higher Education: Management, Discourse and the Politics of Performance
Selwyn, Tom and Shore, Cris (1998). In: Jary, David, (eds.) and Parker, Martin, (eds.), The New Higher Education: Issues and directions for the Post-Dearing University. Stoke-on-Trent: Staffordshire University Press
Selwyn, Tom (1997). In: Selwyn, Tom, (eds.) and Fsadni, Carmel, (eds.), Sustainable tourism in Mediterranean islands and small cities. Msida: University of Malta for the Council of Europe and the EC MED-CAMPUS Programme
Landscapes of Liberation and Imprisonment: Towards an anthropology of the Israeli landscape
Selwyn, Tom (1995). In: Hirsch, Eric, (eds.) and O'Hanlon, M., (eds.), The anthropology of landscape: perspectives on place and space. Oxford: Oxford University Press