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Overview

Dr Ben Hildred

Honorary Fellow

MA, PhD, AFHEA, FRAI.

Affiliations
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Honorary Fellow in the Department of Anthropology  

Biography

I did my undergraduate degree in Social Anthropology at St Andrews (2010-2014), before coming to Durham to complete a PhD in Anthropology (2017-2022). I will begin an ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowship in Anthropology at Durham from 2023-24.

Broadly speaking, I interrogate the idea that sport can be deployed for social good. Previously, I looked at the supposed link between cricket and reconciliation in Sri Lanka. In my ethnographic research, I covered a wide spectrum of the cricket community in Colombo, thinking about cricket within the wider context of Sport for Development and Peace. During my upcoming fellowship, I will build on these findings, and examine the relationship between sport and social change more widely.

I founded and now direct the International Network of Sport Anthropology in 2020, an ECR-focused group that currently has over 40 members from across the world, in the anthropology of sport and related sub-disciplines. We meet fortnightly on Zoom to discuss each other’s work and to run workshops on related topics. If you are interested in joining us, please email admin@sportanthro.org or visit our website www.sportanthro.org

Research interests

  • Cricket
  • Sri Lanka
  • Reconciliation
  • Social Change
  • Sport for Development and Peace
  • Anthropology of Sport

Research groups

Publications

Chapter in book

  • Hildred, B (2023). 'Re-Reflective' Knowledge: The Iterative Cycle of Digitally Mediated Embodiment. In Doing Anthropology in a Sporting World: Knowledge, Representation, and Collaboration in the Digital Age. Carter, TF, Heath, S, Hildred, B & Neuhaus, N Vernon Press.
  • Hildred, B. (2023). "One Team, One Nation": Cricket's promise of a new national identity in Sri Lanka. In Cricket and Nationhood in the Twenty-First Century: Identity Projects in Uncertain Times. Naha, S. Oxford University Press.

Edited book

  • Carter, TF, Heath, S, Hildred, B & Neuhaus, H (2023). Doing Anthropology in a Sporting World: Knowledge, Representation, and Collaboration in the Digital Age. Vernon Press.

Journal Article

  • Hildred, B & Crawley, M (2023). The Anthropology of Sport: New Modes of Theorising Comparison, Scale & Change. JRAI Virtual Issues