Our people
Peter Bishop
Born
in Tottenham, London, I graduated in Civil Engineering from Nottingham
University in England in 1967 and then emigrated as a penniless
working-class youth, on my own, to the only country that would pay my
fare without conditions – South Africa. Only marginally aware of
apartheid, I experienced both shock and renaissance, and after about two
years of structural design work in Johannesburg – which paid for
extensive travels through a country experiencing bitter conflicts and
anti-colonial struggles – I left wiser, but as penniless as I’d arrived.
Back in England for two more years of engineering, mainly on bridge
construction, I emigrated in 1971 as a 10-Pound-Pom to Australia and the
tin huts of the Glenelg migrant hostel.
After a year as an engineer with the SA Engineering & Water Supply Department, I left the profession and went back to uni, taking on postgraduate study in sociology at Flinders with Bob Connell.
I did two years field work in Buddhism in Asia and Europe and returned at the end of 1977 to a short stint of teaching maths at Gilles Plains High School and then a three year lecturing contract in sociology and sociology of education at Hartley CAE. I have been at the Magill campus since then and it, like me, continues to change and metamorphose. In 1989 I completed a PhD in studies in religion at Queensland University. When Magill became a campus of UniSA I shifted from sociology into communications and cultural studies.
I enjoy teaching students across all levels and across diverse disciplines. For many years I taught courses on social control, sociology of knowledge, environment and culture, plus photography and society, but for the past decade nearly all of my teaching has been in cultural and communication studies.
All of these threads are a part of my scholarly and academic activities. I continue to undertake postcolonial research on both Tibet and Buddhism, and I’ve been contracted to write an interdisciplinary book on bridges taking me back full circle to my first profession.
Peter Bishop is an Associate Professor in Communication and Cultural Studies.