Annals: Departmental reports and staff listings
University of Manchester
Social Anthropology, School of Social Sciences, Arthur Lewis Building, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL
T: 0161 275 4001
W: www.socialsciences.manchester.ac.uk/social-anthropology/
Departmental report
Social Anthropology is part of the School of Social Sciences (SOSS), along with Politics, Economic Studies, Philosophy and Sociology. Over the last year, the whole School was moved to a new building, the Arthur Lewis Building, which has meant that all staff and postgraduate students in all the disciplines are located in one building. This has happened at the same time as an expansion of Social Anthropology at Manchester.
Staff
Social Anthropology continues to grow at Manchester. In 2007, we appointed Dr Keir Martin as a new Lecturer in Social Anthropology and Dr Angela Torresan as a new lecturer in Visual Anthropology. In addition, Professor Nina Glick-Schiller arrived in 2007 as the director of the new Research Institute in Cosmopolitan Cultures, and has also become a member of Social Anthropology. Dr Gillian Evans and Dr Andrew Irving, both of whom had been temporary lecturers at Manchester, were awarded RCUK Fellowships: Gillian Evans was appointed by the Centre for Research in Socio-cultural Change (CRESC) and Andrew Irving was appointed by the Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology. Further, Dr Madeleine Reeves, who recently completed her doctorate in Social Anthropology at Cambridge, was also appointed as an RCUK Fellow by CRESC. Drs Evans, Irving and Reeves will become permanent members of staff in Social Anthropology following the end of their fellowships. In addition, Dr Michelle Obeid joined us during 2007 from the LSE, as a Research Fellow for the Centre for the Advanced Study of the Arab World (CASAW). Dr Obeid will also become a permanent member of staff following the end of her fellowship. We also reappointed Dr Tony Simpson and Dr Ian Fairweather as temporary lecturers for the next academic year.
We continued to host a number of other research fellows: Ravi Raman (Hallsworth Fellow, 05-08, who held an international Hallsworth conference at Manchester this year); Jack Taylor (Simon Fellow, 06-09, who returned from fieldwork in Vanuatu this year); Tom Yarrow (Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, 06-08) and Sue Brook (AHRC Fellow, 06-09). In addition, Virginia Dominguez, President Elect of the American Anthropological Association, visited us as a Simon Professorial Fellow; Chris Gregory (Australian National University), following his appointment as a Hallsworth Visiting Professor in November 2006, visited again to give a keynote lecture at the annual conference of the Centre for Research in Socio-Cultural Change. Professor Annelise Riles has also been appointed a Hallsworth Visiting Professor and will be visiting Manchester in November and December 2008.
Research
One of the major events of the year was the Royal Anthropological Institute International Film Festival and major international conference - Beyond Text?: Synaesthetic and Sensory Practices in Anthropology (27 June 27 to 2 July 2007), co-organised by Paul Henley, Rupert Cox and Andrew Irving.
Several staff members won awards for their research work. Andrew Irving was awarded the “Clark Taylor Professional Paper Prize” by the American Anthropological Association AIDS Research Group for “Ethnography, Art and Death” published in the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. Sharon Macdonald’s book, Companion to Museum Studies, won the Choice Outstanding Academic Book of 2007. Sarah Green’s book, Notes from the Balkans, was awarded the Douglass award for best contribution to Europeanist Anthropology (Society of Europeanist Anthropology (American Anthropological Association).
Karen Sykes, Soumhya Venkatesan and Susanne Brandtstadter organised an international workshop funded by the British Academy, Critique of Anthropology and Centre for Research in Social and Economic Change, entitled “Living Paradoxes”. That has resulted in an edited book collection that will be published within the next year. Soumhya Venkatesan also revived the Group for Debates in Anthropological Theory at Manchester in 2008 (with the debate motion: ‘Ontology’ is just another word for ‘culture’). Andrew Irving and Tony Simpson co-organised a workshop entitled “Anthropology and the Shadow of AIDS” at Manchester in June 2007. Stef Jansen organised a Wenner-Gren and British Academy funded workshop held in Manchester in November 2007, entitled “Towards an Anthropology of Hope? Comparative post-Yugoslav Ethnographies.” Stef Jansen also began new research in former Yugoslavia, entitled “Transforming borders: a comparative anthropology of post-Yugoslav "home"'. Sarah Green ran a CRESC workshop in March 2007 on Money, Location and Visibility, as well as setting up an international network called EastBordNet, which now has over 70 members. This year also saw the launch of the Race, Sexuality, Citizenship and Governance project, co-organized by Pete Wade and Professor Fernando Urrea, of the Universidad del Valle, Colombia. The first seminar was held in Manchester in December 2006, and the second in April 2007 in Colombia.
Several members of staff continued to take a very active role in the research activities of CRESC. Penny Harvey became the overall coordinator of one of the four themes in CRESC, Theme 4 (Cultural Values and Politics). CRESC and Social Anthropology also co-organised a major international symposium in June, entitled “Public Knowledge: Redistributions and Reinstitutionalisations.” Sarah Green continued as the coordinator of a project in Theme 1 (Cultural Economy).
Teaching
We are currently supervising 40 PhD students, 10 doctorates were completed in 2007-08, and we have 38 taught masters students on our programmes. We also participate in a joint masters programme in Latin American Cultural Studies. The BSocSci continues to attract high quality undergraduate students.
Full-time teaching staff
Alberto Corsín-Jiménez (DPhil 2001, Oxford; Lecturer in the Anthropology of Organisations) Anthropology of organisations, economic anthropology, political economy, anthropology of capitalism, mining, labour, landscape, personhood, value, ethics; South America, fieldwork in Antofagasta, Chile, and amongst nitrate mining communities of the Atacama desert, Chile
Rupert Cox (PhD 1998, Edinburgh; Lecturer in Visual Anthropology) Visual history of anthropology, history and memory, museums and heritage displays; Asceticism and the traditional arts in Japan; visual history of mutual perceptions of Japan and Europe following the first contacts in the sixteenth century; history and culture of Orientalist automata
Professor Jeanette Edwards (PhD 1990, Manchester; Professor of Social Anthropology) The relationship between language, social class and identity, the social implications of new reproductive technologies, kinship and expertise, and the public understanding of science; Britain, fieldwork in northern England, including work with voluntary organisations, community health and social service providers
Gillian Evans (PhD 2002, Brunel University; RCUK Fellow, CRESC) Anthropology and education, child development, kinship, community and urban history; the politics of place, social class, gender, race and culture; UK and Europe
Ian Fairweather (PhD 2002, Manchester; Temporary Lecturer 2007-09) Museums, heritage, postcolonialism, religion; Namibia
Professor John Gledhill (BLitt 1973, Oxford; Max Gluckman Professor of Social Anthropology) Rural poverty, agrarian change and international migration, comparative political systems, social movements and the politics of human and indigenous rights, historical anthropology; Mexico and developing interest in Brazil
Professor Nina Glick-Schiller (PhD 1975, Columbia; Director, Research Institute for Cosmopolitan Cultures). Regional specialisation in USA, the transnational Caribbean, Haiti and Germany. Her topical interests include transnational processes and globalisation; the migration process in comparative perspective; long distance nationalism; ethnicity, identity; and racialisation; globalisation, theories and methods of transnational studies; medical anthropology/sociology; social theory, ethnographic research methods.
Professor Maia Green (PhD 1993, London School of Economics; Professor of Social Anthropology) Anthropology of religion, political participation and anti-witchcraft movements; professional expertise in social development addressing poverty, gender, participation, local government, civil society, education and health; East Africa (Kenya and Tanzania), fieldwork among Pogoro Catholics, Southern Tanzania
Professor Sarah Green (PhD 1992, Cambridge; Head of Department) Personhood, embodiment, gender and sexuality, landscape, political borders, place and environment, the social contexts of internet use and ICTs; Britain and Greece, fieldwork in London, Manchester, Epirus (northwestern Greece) and the Argolid Valley (Peloponnese, southern Greece). The political and cultural contexts of historical change underlie much of her work
Professor Penelope Harvey (PhD 1987, London School of Economics; Professor of Social Anthropology); Language and power, the politics of communication, gender, representation, modernity and the state, technology and skilled practice; South America, fieldwork in Peruvian Andes and Expo’ 92, Seville, Manchester
Professor Paul Henley (PhD 1979, Cambridge; Director, Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology) Ethnographic film, economic development and the colonisation of the Fourth World, comparative kinship; South America, fieldwork among Amerindian and Black communities in Venezuela
Andrew Irving (PhD 1999, School of Oriental and African Studies, London; RCUK Fellow, Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology) Experiences of illness, death and dying (especially from HIV/AIDS), in relation to the aesthetic appreciation of time, existence, and otherness; phenomenology, art, performance and creativity, time, comparisons of personhood, religious change, gender and urban experiences; Kampala, Uganda and New York, USA
Stef Jansen (PhD 2000, Hull; Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology) Displacement, experiences of 'home', identity, nationalism, resistance and memory, war, violence and ethnic cleansing; post-Yugoslav and other post-communist states.
Professor Sharon Macdonald (DPhil 1987, Oxford; Professor of Social Anthropology) Culture and identity; museums and material culture; tourism; history and memory; science as culture; anthropological theory and practice; Europe (UK, Germany)
Keir Martin (PhD 2006, Manchester; Lecturer in Social Anthropology). Regional specialisation in Papua New Guinea, conducted fieldwork in East New Britain Province on the aftermath of the volcanic eruptions of 1994. Topical interests include post-disaster reconstruction and resettlement, moral political economies, and the role of contested language use in social change.
Michelle Obeid (PhD 2006, LSE. Research Fellow at the Centre for Advanced Studies of the Arab World). Regional specialisation in Middle East and Middle Eastern diaspora populations. Topical interests include kinship in relation to social, economic and political change; idioms of closeness in marriages, households and lineages; border zones; gender and development; migration and diaspora.
Madeleine Reeves (PhD 2008, Cambridge. RCUK Research Fellow, CRESC). Post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan in the Ferghana valley, specialist on anthropology of the state, borders and the technologies through which state spatiality is produced. Also reconfiguration of social scientific knowledge in Central Asia after socialism, and in conceptual translation between Anglophone and Russophone anthropology.
Anthony Simpson (PhD 1996, Manchester; Temporary Lecturer 2007-09) Identity, education, Christianity, missionaries, religious conversion, medical anthropology, HIV/AIDS, death, masculinities, childhood; Central and Southern Africa
Professor Karen Sykes (PhD 1995, Princeton; Professor of Social Anthropology). Cultural anthropology, practice theory, epistemology, violence, kinship and exchange, education and socialisation, national culture, public anthropology; Oceania, fieldwork in Melanesia.
Angela Torresan (PhD 2004, Manchester; Lecturer in Visual Anthropology). Brazilian migrants in Lisbon; is currently working on quilombola (black community) land claims in Brazil, and also on art and identity in the Brazilian northeast.
Soumhya Venkatesan (PhD 2002, Cambridge; Lecturer). Art and craft production; weaving; the agency of objects; development and Islam; South Asia, especially India
Professor Peter Wade (PhD 1985, Cambridge; Professor of Social Anthropology) Ethnicity, race and racism, black culture and identity, urban anthropology, nationalism, popular culture and popular music, Latin American cultural studies; Latin America, specifically Colombia and other Latin American countries with Black populations, fieldwork among Blacks in Colombia
Other staff
Sue Brook (AHRC Research Fellow in Creative and Performing Arts): The aim of her current research is to reassess, through analysis and experimentation, practices of documentary film editing, in order to achieve a new understanding of the anthropological potential of film
Andrew Lawrence (MA Visual Anthropology, Manchester 1997; Teaching Fellow in Visual Anthropology, 2007). Independent film-maker making drama and documentary films for broadcast and festival release.
Ravi Raman (PhD 1999, Kerala; Hallsworth Research Fellow 2005-08) India with special focus on Kerala and fieldwork among the indigenous people, the dalits and other historically oppressed castes and communities
Jack Taylor (PhD 2003, Australian National University; Simon Research Fellow 2006-09) Critique of development, political economy of resource conflict, postdevelopment social movements; social anthropology of identity; discourse analysis; anthropology of Vanuatu and island Melanesia; masculinities; cosmologies and colonialism in cross-cultural perspective; ethnohistory and historiography; kinship and gender; modernity, tourism, ethnicity and identity politics in the Pacific region
Professor Richard Werbner (PhD 1968, Manchester, Professor Emeritus of African Anthropology, Honorary Research Professor in Visual Anthropology) Ritual, personal and historical narrative, politics, law, regional analysis; South-Central Africa, fieldwork among the Kalanga (Zimbabwe and Botswana) and Tswapong (Botswana)
Leslie Woodhead OBE (Honorary Companion of the University of Manchester): Has directed eleven Disappearing World films whilst at the same time pursuing a distinguished career as a political drama-documentary director.
Tom Yarrow (PhD 2005, Cambridge; Leverhulme Research Fellow 2006-08) NGOs and development organisations in Ghana; globalisation, civil society, the anthropology of organisations, elites, and the anthropology of development
Honorary Fellows
Alejandro Agudo-Sanchiz (PhD, Manchester)
Goncalo Duro dos Santos (PhD, Lisbon)
Mattia Fumanti (PhD, Manchester)
Suzette Heald (PhD, UCL)
Nikoleta Katsakiori (PhD, Manchester)
Cecilia McCallum (PhD, LSE)
Haydee Quiroz (PhD)
Cristina Orsatti (PhD, Salford)
Francisco Osorio (PhD, Chile)
Nathan Porath (PhD, Leiden)
Amanda Ravetz (PhD, Manchester)
Rosie Read (PhD, Manchester)
Stephen Reyna (PhD, Columbia)
Benjamin Richard Smith (PhD, LSE)
Sissie Theodosiou (PhD, Manchester)
Mara Viveros (PhD, EHESS)
Pnina Werbner (PhD, Manchester)
Richard Werbner (PhD, Manchester)
Lingyan Li (PhD, Chinese Academy of Sciences)
Xihui Li (PhD, Chinese Academy of Sciences)
Anthropologists in other departments at Manchester
Aytree Sen, specialist on India, gender, violence and nationalism. Lecturer in CIDRA (Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in the Arts)
Professor Caroline Moser, Urban poverty and inequality in cities of the South, particularly Latin America. Director of the Global Urban Research Centre, School of Environment and Development.
Anna Lora-Wainwright, Anthropology of rural China, medical anthropology, social change and everyday life experiences. Postdoctoral Fellow in Contemporary Chinese Culture and Society, Centre for Chinese Studies.
Peter Cave (PhD, Oxford). Education and socialisation in Japan. Lecturer in Japanese Studies.
Roger Ballard (PhD, Delhi; Lecturer) Urban ethnicity, change, migration, medical and welfare provision; India, Pakistan, Britain. Director of the Centre for Applied South Asian Studies.
Lyn Schumaker (Wellcome Researcher) History of medicine in Africa, medical sociology and anthropology, historical sociology of science, technology and medicine
Departmental Administrators: Marie Rostron and Lynn Dignan
Special resources and facilities: Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology (Tel: 0161 275 3999; Director: Paul Henley); International Centre for Contemporary Cultural Research (address as Department); EIDOS centre for research in ethnographic film (address as Department).
Departmental series: Forman Lecture (Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology, Annual Lecture); Max Gluckman Memorial Lecture (ICCCR Annual Lecture); Group for Debates in Anthropological Theory; Manchester Papers in Social Anthropology (Series of departmental research papers); Manchester Anthropology Working Papers (Series of departmental working papers).