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Neil Vallelly imageBA, MA (Queen's University Belfast); PhD (Otago)

Senior Lecturer

Contact details

Room 6C12, Richardson Building
Tel +64 3 479 3074
Email neil.vallelly@otago.ac.nz

Research interests

Neil's research crosses the areas of critical and social theory, political sociology, and border and migration studies, with a specific focus on neoliberalism.

His first book, Futilitarianism: Neoliberalism and the Production of Uselessness (2021), examined the historical relationship between capitalism and utilitarianism and the transformation of this relationship under neoliberalism. An Italian translation of the book, under the title Vite Rubate, was published in March 2022 and a Portuguese (Brazil) translation will be published in 2023.

In 2022, Neil was awarded a two-year Rutherford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship to work on a project on the relationship between neoliberalism and migrant incarceration in Aotearoa New Zealand and beyond. He is also developing several collaborative research projects on topics relating to social reproduction and essential work during the COVID‑19 pandemic, the history of migration policy in Aotearoa New Zealand, and the cultural politics of suicide in public.

Neil's research has appeared in academic journals such as Angelaki, Organization, Rethinking Marxism, and Poetics Today, he has written for media, including Jacobin, New Internationalist, and New Zealand Listener, and he has appeared on several radio shows and podcasts, such as BBC Radio 4's Thinking Allowed, A World to Win with Grace Blakeley, and New Books Network.

Neil is the co-editor (alongside Simon Barber) of the journal Counterfutures, a member of the Executive Committee for the Australasian Society for Continental Philosophy, and a researcher for Economic and Social Research Aotearoa.

Teaching

I co-ordinate:

I teach into:

  • SOCI 101 Sociology of New Zealand Society
  • SOCI 103 Crime, Deviance and Social Transformation

Areas of postgraduate supervision

  • Neoliberalism
  • Critical and Marxist theory
  • Borders
  • Migration
  • Social reproduction
  • Abolition practices

Publications

Vallelly, N. (2026, February). Borders-as-flesh: Notes on a political counter-imaginary. Verbal presentation at the Crossing Borders Symposium, Dunedin, New Zealand. Conference Contribution - Verbal presentation and other Conference outputs

Vallelly, N. (2025, November). Border-as-flesh, border-as-ethics. Verbal presentation at the 27th Irish Studies Association of Australia and New Zealand (ISAANZ) Conference: Health, Wellness and Care, Dunedin, New Zealand. Conference Contribution - Verbal presentation and other Conference outputs

Vallelly, N. (2025). Border-as-flesh: Towards a theory of border reversibility. Theory & Event, 28(4), 587-609. doi: 10.1353/tae.2025.a971352 Journal - Research Article

Collins, F. L., Gamlen, A., & Vallelly, N. (2025). Edges of empire: The politics of immigration in Aotearoa New Zealand, 1980-2020. Auckland, New Zealand: Auckland, University Press, 344p. Authored Book - Research

Vallelly, N. (2024). The borders of hospitality. Proceedings of the Sociological Association of Aotearoa New Zealand (SAANZ) Conference: The Sociology to Come. Retrieved from https://www.saanz.net/saanz2024/ Conference Contribution - Published proceedings: Abstract

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