My research interests lie in how old institutions are transported, adapted, re-formed, re-imagined, transplanted and naturalised or translated (or not) in new realms and new social and material environments, especially in settler societies.  Continuities, and the maintenance of continuities through change, is of great interest to me, as is historiography and the ways historians shape particular historical narratives and privilege particular interpretations.  I like to write within long time frames, and whole landscapes and enduring cultural institutions, while drawing upon the insights of local and microhistory, thick description, environmental legends and mythologies, and social rituals and ceremonies.  These approaches inform my studies of crowns and viceroyalty, convict transportation and 'gay' histories, and emphasise the role of material evidence as well as documentary sources.