Theo Stapleton

  • Postdoctoral Research and Teaching Associate
Theo Stapleton

Contact

About

Theo Stapleton is a Postdoctoral Teaching and Research Associate in the Cambridge Social Anthropology Department (2025-2026), where he received his PhD under the supervision of Professor Emeritus James Laidlaw. His PhD was funded by the AHRC Open Oxford Cambridge Doctoral Training Program, the Cambridge Trust International Scholarship, and the St John’s Benefactor Scholarship. 

Prior to that, Theo completed a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy and Chinese at the University of Western Australia, during which he also spent two years studying in Beijing as a New Colombo Plan scholar (2015-2017). After completing an honours degree in Asian Studies at UWA (2018), he undertook a master's degree at Oxford in Contemporary China Studies where he received the Ko Cheuk-hung Prize for best thesis (2019) and the top mark in the social sciences quadrant, and then completed a second master's degree at Peking University as a Yenching scholar where he studied social anthropology (2020). 

 

Research

Theo conducted his PhD fieldwork at the first Chinese Buddhist mission in Tanzania, where he spent 12 months as a Swahili-Chinese-English interpreter and driver. Founded in 2018, this is one among a growing number of Chinese Buddhist institutions in Africa (see Frontiers of Faith Seminar Series). To theorise the many and varied engagements across differences that structured social life at Tanhua Temple, his thesis adapts work on the comparative method in anthropology for the study of religiously, linguistically, ethnically, politically and culturally plural spaces. Each chapter introduces a set of engagements across differences, theorising the contrasting framings and their effects on social relations. 

He is currently developing two new research projects: one that explores the experiences and perspectives of bilingual interpreters who work across the Swahili-Mandarin divide, and the other about the ongoing refurbishments of the Tanzania-Zambia Railway, the largest Mao-era development aid project and enduring symbol of Sino-Tanzanian relations. 

 

Publications

Articles

  • 2024.  Stapleton, TJ , “The Sacred-Secular Hybridity of Ren’ai: Charitable Organisations, Religious Networks, and Ethical Identities in Contemporary China”, Review of Chinese Society and Religion, vol. 11(1), pp. 58-94.
  • 2022.  Stapleton, TJ & Tao, Y “The Emergence of Transnational Humanistic Buddhism through the Lens of Religious Entrepreneurship”, Asian Studies Journal, vol. 46(2), pp. 312-33.
  • 2018.  Tao, Y & Stapleton, TJ, “Religious Affiliations of the Chinese Community in Australia: Findings from 2016 Census Data”, Religions, vol. 9(4), pp. 93.

Under Review

  • Stapleton, TJ forthcoming (in progress), “The Tanhua System: tracing the networks of the first Chinese Buddhist Temple in Tanzania”, in Ashiwa & Wank (eds) Chinese Buddhism in Globalization: State Diplomacy, Transnational Mobilities, and Local Reactions.