Benedict John Kerkvliet (born 1943) is Emeritus Professor at the Department of Political and Social Change, School of International, Political & Strategic Studies, Australian National University. He works across the areas of comparative politics, Southeast Asia and Asian studies. Kerkvliet was born and raised in Montana, surrounded by working-class relatives and friends for whom political discussion and debate were part of life. After graduating from the local public high schools, he earned his B.A. at Whitman College (Walla Walla, Washington) and his M.A. and Ph.D. at University of Wisconsin–Madison. He taught at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa) for nearly twenty years before joining the Australian National University in 1992 where he was a Professor and Head of the Department of Political and Social Change, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies. Kerkvliet currently resides in Hawaiʻi with his wife Melinda.
Kerkvliet is fascinated with how ordinary people deal with big pressures on their lives. He has emphasized research on agrarian politics in Southeast Asia. Closely related is his study of interactions between ordinary people and authorities or other elites. He is currently doing research on local reactions to major recent national policies in the Philippines and Vietnam.
Kerkvliet taught Political Science and Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Hawaiʻi from 1971 to 1991. He has been teaching at Australian National University since 1991. He has received various international fellowships and awards for research and teaching in Asia, Australia, Europe and America. Most importantly, Kerkvliet enjoys working with industrious graduate students and living in and doing research in the Philippines and Vietnam.
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