Gareth has a background in anthropology. He conducted fieldwork in Gibraltar in the mid-1980s and focused on the community of Moroccan workers who serviced the Rock during the period following Franco’s closure of the land frontier with Spain in 1969. While in Gibraltar he became interested in larger questions surrounding the foundations of British identity.
In this respect his work, while beginning within the confines of classical ethnography, has come to embrace a larger set of questions: migrancy, ethnicity and imperial identity. Indeed, this research background has led him to question a number of the fundamental tenets of ethnographic research. One result of this has been an abiding interest in aspects of literature that, in the past, have not been associated with anthropological concerns.
This mixture of influences means that his research lies very firmly in the fascinating research area which has opened between anthropology and cultural studies including literature and art. His interest in literary representations of exile led to his translation of Tahar Ben Jelloun’s novel La reclusion solitaire, which was published by Quartet Books in the UK.
He has also published a critical edition of another francophone Moroccan writer’s work, Driss Chraibi’s novel Une enquéte au pays. He has also been involved in other projects which stem directly from his areas of research interest and from the courses he has taught while working at Goldsmiths. In the field of postcolonial studies, he collaborated with Bart Moore-Gilbert and Wily Maley, to produce one of the first substantial readers in this area.
Postcolonial Criticism: a reader was published by Longman in their prestigious Longman Critical Readers series. The book was published in a Chinese edition by the University of Peking Press in 2000. Other research has included studies addressing the historical links and connections between cultural studies and anthropology.
In particular, he has written about Tom Harrisson and the Mass-Observation movement in Britain, and the British cultural commentator Geoffrey Gorer. More recently, he has written about the area of London in which he lives, Peckham. After many years as Head of Goldsmiths’ renowned Department of Media, Communications and Cultural Studies, he has stepped down to focus his interests on areas of visual culture ranging from Nollywood cinema to the colonial postcard.
He is currently working on questions of world cinema, media and politics and environmental change. The geographical focus of his research at present is on West Africa and Bangladesh.
Gareth has supervised PhD work in recent years on Korean and Japanese soap opera, Greek documentary, Al Jazeera, Islamic migrants to Portugal and the history of film appreciation in the UK.
Stanton, Gareth. 2009. R.S.Thomas's Neb. In: Sionedd Rowland; Rhian Reynolds and Ray Keenoy, eds. Babel Guide to Welsh Fiction. Boulevard Books. ISBN 978-1899460519
Stanton, Gareth. 2005. Peckham Tales. In: James P. Curran and David G. Morley, eds. Media and Cultural Theory. London: Routledge, pp. 100-114. ISBN 978-0415317054
Stanton, Gareth. 1998. ‘Aaron Appelfeld’s The Healer’. In: Ray Keenoy and Saskia Brown, eds. Babel Guide to Jewish Fiction: Fiction in Translation. London: Boulevard Books, pp. 24-25. ISBN 978-1899460250
May 5 2011 ‘The Sensuous Anthropologist Contemplates His Own Demise: reflecting again on Paul Stoller and the anthropology of the senses’, Media and the Senses conference, Goldsmiths.
May 18 2011 ‘Nollywood Abroad: the travels of Nigerian Film’. Invited lecture, Institut für Medien und Kommunikationswissenschaft, Alpen-Adria Universität, Klagenfurt, Austria.
May 26 2011 ‘Video in Nigeria: from the past to the present, the local to the global’, Invited lecture, Bahcesehir University, Istanbul, Turkey.
July 30, 2011, ‘Media in Vietnam Conference’, Presentation: ‘Media Education in Vietnam: a response to contemporary needs’. Duxton Hotel, Ho Chi Min City, Vietnam.
December 7-9, 2011, ‘On bridges built and bridges burnt: reflections on community engagement with universities’, Opening Address (day 2) at ‘Building Bridges between Universities and Communities- A British Council- University Grants Commission (Bangladesh) Policy Dialogue’, Dhaka, Bangladesh
February 27-29, 2012, Beyond Normative Approaches: Everyday Media Culture in Africa, paper presented ‘Nollywood in Motion: the view from London’. Department of Media Studies, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.
March, 21, 2012, Presentation; ‘Rachel Carson’s Legacy’, Reporting the Environment Workshop, Collaboration between Goldsmiths Department of Media and Communications and the Department of Mass Communication and Journalism, University of Dhaka, Dhaka, Bangladesh.
April 14, 2012, ‘Fabric of Fieldwork’, Workshop to discuss exhibition by Susan Ossman and Wessieling at the Brunei Gallery, SOAS, London. Chair and Discussion Leader.
January, 10, 2013 ‘Analysing the success of the Bangladeshi film ‘Guerilla’’, paper presented at MeCCSA Conference, Derry, University of Ulster.
April 10, 2013 ‘Reflections on Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor’, Communication, Environment and Climate Change two-day conference, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh..
May 28 2013 Moving Matters Symposium, Culver Centre, University of California Riverside, Riverside, Paper presented ‘The Day I shook Nkruma’s Hand: a voyage round (Ghana with) my father’.
June 22 Necs European Network for Cinema and Media Studies Conference, Media Politics Political Media, Session: Archival Selection and Political Explorations in the Images of History, paper presented ‘Film and Memory in Bangladesh: an initial exploration of the cinematic genocide’. Charles University, Prague.
