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Department of Social Anthropology

 

Biography

I am a social anthropologist with a broad interest in understanding the way in which different kinds of crises are politically, socially and intimately lived, imagined and articulated in contexts of rapid political economic transformation. I have written on urban transformation, violence, and subjectivity in Brazil; on imperialism and subjectivity in postcolonial Europe; on mental health in contemporary Portugal. I have also done some work on sustainable energy and economic crisis in Portugal. My current research focuses on mental health in times of political, economic and environmental uncertainty in Europe. My regional areas of interest are Latin America (especially Brazil) and Western Europe (Portugal, UK).

Research

I hold an MPhil and PhD in Social Anthropology from the University of Cambridge. Previously, I read History (BA Hons) at Lancaster University, where I took an interest in the history of ideas as well as in imperial and postcolonial contexts. My MPhil work built on the latter to look at the way race, gender and sexuality intersected to produce different political subjects and distinct exclusions, in two major cities in contemporary Northeast Brazil. My PhD research followed from this, looking at the transformation of Salvador (BA), Brazil’s colonial capital and key port city in the lucrative global trade in persons and imperial goods, into a pivotal UNESCO World heritage site. I was interested in looking at the claims to exceptional cultural and human value articulated by state officials and heritage stakeholders from the perspective of those most affected by the interventions which followed the city’s acquisition of UNESCO’s World Heritage status. This, in turned, led me to focus on the way a perceived increase in violence and violent crime has reconfigured public life in the city.  

I was a postdoctoral fellow at the Centre of Latin American Studies, University of Cambridge, where I convened and taught the MPhil course on the Anthropology of Latin America and carried out extensive graduate supervision. During my time at CLAS, I wrote a series of articles based on my doctoral and postdoctoral research, which expanded on my previous work on violence and looked at the devastating effects that a growth in drug consumption in the city (especially crack cocaine) has had in both its public life and in the quotidian of some of its most vulnerable communities. At the same time, I also started to look back at some of my longstanding interests in late colonial and postcolonial European history and published a long (commissioned) article on memory, material culture and identity in contemporary Portugal.

Recently, I started to do research on mental health in contemporary Europe, with an emphasis on depression and anxiety. That research, which has expanded to look at the complex relation between mental health/care and political, economic and environmental change, is ongoing.  

 

Research Interests

Political economy and social change; cities, space and the built environment; violence; mental health and healthcare; memory; gender; race; historical anthropology; and social theory (Latin America, especially Brazil; Europe).

Teaching and Supervisions

Teaching: 

 

SAN5: Ethical life and the anthropology of the subject: Anthropology of subjectivity

SAN4: Ethnographic areas: South America

 

Undergraduate Supervision

SAN1 – Social Anthropology: The comparative perspective 

SAN2 - The foundations of social life

SAN5 - Ethical life and the anthropology of the subject

Affiliated Lecturer
College Lecturer in Social Anthropology, Robinson College
By-Fellow and Director of Studies, Homerton College
Director of Studies, St Edmunds College
Office hours: appointment by email

Contact Details

Email address: 

Affiliations