Dr David Sneath

Head of Department of Social Anthropology; Reader; Fellow, Corpus Christi college

email: ds114 [at] cam.ac.uk

Research interests: inner and central Asia; pastoralism; land use and the environment; decollectivisation and post-socialist social transformations; political culture and economic institutions in inner Asia; and the anthropology of development.

My latest research explores two main themes, directly connected with Tibetan and Mongolian notions of landscape, property and the individual’s place within it. First of these themes are the ‘ovoo’, stone cairns, used for ritual purposes and for demarcating the boundaries of religious and ethnic groupings. Second is ‘khiimor’, the notion of a person or collective’s fortune, or auspicious prospects, which is both represented and embodied in the fortune flags that are attached to ovoo and flown outside individual households. The project brought one scholar from Inner Mongolia for discussion and analysis of historical text, and sent another to Inner Mongolia and Qinghai for social anthropological research.

I am also involved in a project titled ‘Technologies of the Imagination’ – a relatively new departure for me, collaborating with anthropologists working in a wide range of locations to try and develop a new comparative approach to the anthropology of the imagination. We aim to to develop an innovative approach to the analysis of the social imaginary and the ways in which it is creatively shaped and communicated.

Publications

Cover of David Sneath's 'The Headless State'
The Headless State: Aristocratic Orders, Kinship Society, and Misrepresentations of Nomadic Inner Asia
In this groundbreaking work, social anthropologist David Sneath aggressively dispels the myths surrounding the history of steppe societies and proposes a new understanding of the nature and formation of the state.
October 13th, 2010
» Full List of Publications

Projects

Photograph of three Mongolians
Oral History of Twentieth Century Mongolia
Dr David Sneath, Dr Christopher Kaplonski and Professor Caroline Humphrey. An AHRC funded co-operative project between the MIASU and the National University of Mongolia which aims to collect over 600 personal oral histories from Mongolians throughout the country to create a publicly accessible, dual-language database with the aim of creating a new understanding of individuals’ [...]
August 10th, 2010
photo by freebird bobinson
Technologies of the Imagination
David Sneath is collaborating with anthropologists working in a wide range of locations to try and develop a new comparative approach to the anthropology of the imagination. They aim to to develop an innovative approach to the analysis of the social imaginary and the ways in which it is creatively shaped and communicated.  Regarding rituals [...]
August 1st, 2010
Photograph of people waiting for the horse races to begin, Mongolia.
Contested landscapes and ritual practices at the Tibetan-Mongol Interface
This project builds on David Sneath’s previous research on land-use and the environment in Inner Asia, and develops this in a new direction. It explores two main themes, directly connected with Tibetan and Mongolian notions of landscape, property and the individual’s place within it.  First of these themes are the ‘ovoo’, stone cairns, used for [...]
August 1st, 2010

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