Social anthropology is the study of social and cultural life in the various forms this takes in relation to the many contexts where this is found. As social anthropologists, we aim to answer questions of broad interest through the comparative study of particular people and places. We are especially interested in investigating people in contexts of everyday social life and in understanding these practices from the perspective of those involved. We use a range of ethnographic methods to do this, including participant observation, interviewing, and archival research.
Contact Research Co-ordinator: Professor Catherine Alexander
Staff members:
Professor Simone Abram
Professor Catherine Alexander
Dr Hannah Brown
Dr Ben Campbell
Dr Michael Crawley
Professor Yulia Egorova
Dr Elaine Forde
Dr Paolo Fortis
Professor Kate Hampshire
Dr Paolo Heywood
Dr Leo Hopkinson
Dr Elisabeth Kirtsoglou
Dr Loretta Lou
Dr Roslyn Malcolm
Professor Nayanika Mookherjee
Dr Declan Murray
Professor Gina Porter
Dr Istvan Praet
Dr Felix Ringel
Professor Paul Sillitoe
Professor Bob Simpson
Dr Alice Stefanelli
Dr Tom Widger
Professor Tom Yarrow
For further information, please contact Senior Research Administrator, Kate Payne (kate.payne@durham.ac.uk)
MICHAELMAS TERM 2024
9th October, 15.30 - 17.00 (CLC407, Calman)
Welcome Session (15.30 - 16.00)
Tom Grisaffi (University of Sankt-Gallen) (Zoom)
How to build trust in an illegal market: Debt and dependence in the Bolivian cocaine trade
30th October, 13.00 - 14.30 [Joint seminar with AHRG] (CLC407, Calman)
Eben Kirksey (Oxford University)
6th November, 15.00 – 17.00 Department Seminar (Data Theme) (CLC407, Calman)
Marlee Tichenor
The Datafication of Health Policy and Health Data Ecosystems in Senegal
13th November, 13.00 - 14.30 (D104, Dawson)
Alice Rudge, (SOAS)
‘No place to run’: Indeterminacy and its denial at the frontier of plantation expansion
20th November, 15.00 Inaugural Professorial Lecture (Dept Seminar) (CLC407, Calman)
Elisabeth Kirtsoglou
27th November, 13.00 - 14.30 (D104, Dawson)
Ana-Maria Cîrstea (Newcastle University)
Conspiratorial thinking & vernacular politics for Romanians in London during Covid-19
11th December, 15.00 – 17.00 The Layton Dialogue (CLC407, Calman)
‘Multispecies ethnography as a forum for dialogue in anthropology’
Marianne Lien (University of Oslo)
Kerry Dore (Baylor University)
Discussant: Simona Capisani (Durham University)
EPIPHANY TERM 2025
15th January, 13.00 - 14.30 [Joint Seminar SARG/AHRG] CLC407, Calman
Chris Courtney, (Durham University)
From Miasmatic Mists to Air-Conditioning Disease: Worrying About Humidity in Chinese History
22nd January, 15.30 - 17.00 (CLC407, Calman)
Petra Tjitske Kalshoven (Manchester University)
Seep Time: on the passings of time in the short term, the long term, and into the future of UK nuclear decommissioning
5th February, 13.00 – 15.00 [Joint seminar SARG/AHRG] (CLC407, Calman)
‘Why and how we speak with the dead: an interdisciplinary dialogue on spiritualist practices in China and the UK’
Adam Reed (St Andrews University)
Living Images: Spiritualism and the equivocations of mediumship
Luis Junquiera (Cambridge University)
Divine Influence or Mental Power? Redefining Ritual Healing in Republican China (1912-1949)
12th February, 15.00 – 17.00 Department Seminar (Data theme) (CLC407, Calman)
Tom Neumark (University of Oslo)
Title TBA
19th February, 15.30 - 17.00 (CLC407, Calman)
Fuad Musallam (Birmingham)
Solidarity across Difference: Lessons from Lebanon's Oppositional Politics
26th February, 15.00 – 17.00 Department Seminar (Data Theme) CLC407, Calman
Alberto Acerbi
5th March, 15.30 - 17.00 [Joint seminar with Newcastle University] CLC407, Calman
David Henig (Utrecht University)
Elemental Infrapolitics: On Guerrilla De-mining in a Landscape of War
19th March, 15.00 - 17.00 Inaugural Professorial Lecture (Dept. seminar) (CLC407, Calman)
Tom Widger