Anthropology and Contemporary Worlds Research Group
This research group led by UEL anthropologists includes colleagues across disciplines and from other universities. Our understandings of anthropological knowledge as embedded in the ‘everyday ’ and applicable to diverse settings set the pace for our research and knowledge exchange activities.
We are interested in contemporary questions of what it means to be human and interactions in community, socio-political and other contexts. What are the various ways of making sense of city-scapes ‘occupied’ by many nationalities who also share ‘common belonging.’ In what new forms can we examine violence, citizenship and justice? How do we revisit the notion of ‘failed states’? How do we re-examine the everyday through anthropological lens in the midst of uncertainties and change? How do we understand the cosmopolitan amidst cultural distinctiveness? These are a few of the questions which signal the interconnected settings of anthropology and contemporary worlds. We draw on the research network www.anthropologies-in-translation.org which was established by Narmala Halstead. We also have specialist research expertise in a range of areas and countries. This includes research on Miskitu-speakers and, more recently, Ulwa-speakers on Nicaragua's Mosquito Coast (Mark Jamieson); on ethnonational conflict/peacebuilding in violently divided cities (John Nagle); on refugees and the Rwandan genocide (Giorgia Dona) and on violence, the state and cultural transformatons in Guyana; migration/citizenship, USA (Narmala Halstead).
For more details on the group and other enquiries please contact Narmala Halstead
MEMBERS
Giorgia Dona
Narmala Halstead
Mark Jamieson
John Nagle
Olga Martin-Ortega
External members
Heather Horst
LEVERHULME VISITING PROFESSOR (2012): Helena Wulff, Stockholm University
Professor Helena Wulff is a Leverhulme visiting professor in 2012 (Semester A). Professor Wulff will be a key presence on the programme, Anthropology and Contemporary Worlds Research Series, consisting of lectures, seminars, workshops and research collaborations. She will specifically engage with ‘an Anthropology of Communication and Aesthetics.’ This programme places emphasis on anthropology as practice to bring out its wide applicability in multi-disciplinary contexts and outside of academic settings. The programme brings out the synthesis between theory and practice through critical epistemological explorations and experiential connections.
Professor Wulff is, at present, one of the leading European scholars in the anthropology of communication and aesthetics, based on a wide range of research on the social worlds of literary production, dance, and the visual arts. She has published extensively, in monograph form, edited volumes and central journals, and has held leadership positions in international organizations and networks. Through guest lectures, visiting positions, and conference participation she has a wide perspective toward international anthropology and related academic fields. She has held visiting professorships at the University of Ulster, the University of Vienna and the National University of Singapore. She was Editor-in-Chief (with Professor Dorle Dracklé, University of Bremen) of Social Anthropology/ Anthropologie Sociale, the journal of the European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA), and Vice President of EASA.
RESEARCH PROJECTS
SEMINAR SERIES
Semester A 2011-12-13
2011 UEL Anthropology Research Seminar Series
****ALL WELCOME****
Room: WB 3.02
Time: 12:30 to 13.30
October 6
Judith Okely, University of Oxford
Anthropological Practice: dialogues with anthropologists about their fieldwork
October 13
Gavin Poynter, University of East London
Title: Researching the Olympics
October 20
Clare Melhuish, Brunel University
Title: The relevance of modern architecture and the built environment to anthropology: from the Brunswick, London, to Floréal, Martinique
October 27
Daniel Miller, UCL
Title: Facebook and Digital Anthropology
November 3
Gillian Evans, Manchester University
Documenting the Olympic Legacy: materialising change in East London
November 10
Filippo Osella
Migration, networks and connectedness across the Indian Ocean
November 24
Ronald C. Jennings, LSE
Title: Cosmopolitan Subjects: Global Criminal Law, the New Global Courts, and the Globalization of the Political
ANTHROPOLOGY POST-GRADUATE PORTFOLIO DEVELOPMENTS/ RESEARCH
Masters Programmes Under development
PhD in Anthropology
Urban anthropology student fieldwork projects
