BA, MA (Queen's University Belfast); PhD (Otago)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:
- SOCI 306 Public Sociology
I teach into:
Areas of postgraduate supervision
- Neoliberalism
- Critical and Marxist theory
- Borders
- Migration
- Social reproduction
- Abolition practices
Publications
Vallelly, N. (2021). Futilitarianism: Neoliberalism and the production of uselessness. London, UK: Goldsmiths Press. Authored Book - Research
Murtola, A.-M., & Vallelly, N. (2023). Who cares for wellbeing? Corporate wellness, social reproduction and the essential worker. Organization, 30(3), 510-527. doi: 10.1177/13505084221131642 Journal - Research Article
Murtola, A.-M., & Vallelly, N. (2023). Visible and invisible work in the pandemic: Social reproduction and the ambivalent category of the essential worker. Journal of Gender Studies, 2219979. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1080/09589236.2023.2219979 Journal - Research Article
Vallelly, N. (2023). Editorial: The fictitious university. Counterfutures, 14, 10-18. [Editorial]. Journal - Research Other
Vallelly, N. (2019). The relationality of disappearance. Angelaki, 24(3), 38-52. doi: 10.1080/0969725X.2019.1620450 Journal - Research Article