Social Anthropology Research Group

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

Social Anthropology Seminars 2024/25

Many of our Social Anthropology seminars are open to the public alongside our university community. Some are also live streamed through Zoom. For further information about individual seminars or the whole series, please contact Senior Research Administrator, Kate Payne (kate.payne@durham.ac.uk).

Building locations and directions are available through Google Maps.

Please also note that our other Research Groups will be presenting their own seminar series' during this period. You can find details on their Research Group pages: Anthropology of Health (AHRG) and Evolutionary Anthropology (EARG).

MICHAELMAS TERM 2024

9^th October, 15.30 - 17.00  (CLC407, Calman Learning Centre)

• Welcome Session (15.30 - 16.00)
• How to build trust in an illegal market: Debt and dependence in the Bolivian cocaine trade
• Tom Grisaffi (University of Sankt-Gallen) (Zoom)

30^th October, 13.00 - 14.30 (CLC407, Calman Learning Centre)

• Joint seminar with AHRG
• Eben Kirksey (Oxford University)

6^th November, 15.00 – 17.00 (CLC407, Calman Learning Centre)

• Department Seminar (Data Theme)
• The Datafication of Health Policy and Health Data Ecosystems in Senegal
• Marlee Tichenor

13^th November, 13.00 - 14.30 (D104, Dawson Building)

• ‘No place to run’: Indeterminacy and its denial at the frontier of plantation expansion
• Alice Rudge, (SOAS)

20^th November, 15.00(CLC407, Calman)

• Department Seminar
• Inaugural Professorial Lecture
• Elisabeth Kirtsoglou

27^th November, 13.00 - 14.30 (D104, Dawson Building)

• Conspiratorial thinking & vernacular politics for Romanians in London during Covid-19
• Ana-Maria Cîrstea (Newcastle University)

11^th December, 15.00 – 17.00 (CLC407, Calman)

• The Layton Dialogue
• ‘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

15^th January, 13.00 - 14.30 (CLC407, Calman Learning Centre)

• From Miasmatic Mists to Air-Conditioning Disease: Worrying About Humidity in Chinese History
• Joint Seminar SARG/AHRG
• Chris Courtney, (Durham University)

22^nd January, 15.30 - 17.00 (CLC407, Calman Learning Centre)

• Seep Time: on the passings of time in the short term, the long term, and into the future of UK nuclear decommissioning
• Petra Tjitske Kalshoven (Manchester University)

5^th February, 13.00 – 15.00 (CLC407, Calman Learning Centre)

• ‘Why and how we speak with the dead: an interdisciplinary dialogue on spiritualist practices in China and the UK’
  • Joint seminar SARG/AHRG
• Living Images: Spiritualism and the equivocations of mediumship
  • Adam Reed (St Andrews University)
• Divine Influence or Mental Power? Redefining Ritual Healing in Republican China (1912-1949)
  • Luis Junquiera (Cambridge University)

12^th February, 15.00 – 17.00 (CLC407, Calman Learning Centre)

• Department Seminar (Data theme)
• Title TBA
• Tom Neumark (University of Oslo)

19^th February, 15.30 - 17.00 (CLC407, Calman Learning Centre)

• Solidarity across Difference: Lessons from Lebanon's Oppositional Politics
• Fuad Musallam (Birmingham)

26^th February, 15.00 – 17.00 Department Seminar (Data Theme) CLC407, (Calman Learning Centre)

• Department Seminar (Data theme)
• Title TBA
• Alberto Acerbi

5^th March, 15.30 - 17.00 [] CLC407, (Calman Learning Centre)

• Elemental Infrapolitics: On Guerrilla De-mining in a Landscape of War
• Joint seminar with Newcastle University
• David Henig (Utrecht University)

19^th March, 15.00 - 17.00  (CLC407, Calman Learning Centre)

• Department Seminar
• Inaugural Professorial Lecture
• Tom Widger