Dr Natalie Morningstar

My research is concerned with activism and the political subject, as well as with ethnographic understandings of freedom, power and the state. My doctoral work focused on a group of artists and activists in Dublin critical of gentrification, urban renewal, and the influx of especially American Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) into the Irish state post-recession. I examined how they mobilise the word “neoliberalism” as a contemporary political claim expressing a lack of trust in liberal democratic governance, as well as the consequences of this ethnographic case for anthropological approaches to politics and critique. 

An ESRC-funded postdoctoral research project then examined allegiances to the Irish political party, Sinn Féin among young leftist voters and activists. Building on doctoral fieldwork in and around social housing regenerations in Dublin, I explored how the housing crisis made it possible for young middle-class leftists and working-class residents in gentrifying neighbourhoods to see one another as tentative allies and eventually to rally around the party, contributing significantly to Sinn Féin's success in the 2020 General Election.

Recent work examines why this alliance is now more fragile, focusing on the role of anti-immigrant agitation and the ongoing housing crisis in Ireland. These topics are unpacked in my monograph - entitled 'Critiquing Neoliberalism: Art and Activism in Post-Recession Dublin’ - which traces a through line from a range of anti-austerity and left-wing activist movements post-2008 to the ongoing housing crisis and support for Sinn Féin. Elsewhere, my work advocates for applying anthropological tools and questions to traditional political theoretical debates and liberal democratic institutions, such as courts and citizens' assemblies. 

My current research examines social housing regeneration and housing delivery in Cambridge City. In collaboration with the Cambridge City Council, I have undertaken research on tenants' experience of relocation and how the delivery of higher-quality social housing contributes to their health, sense of place, and wellbeing. This research also engages with the deployment of social value and human capital in policy frameworks and seeks to make a case for ethnographic data collection as an essential contribution to addressing unmet housing need in the UK. 

I maintain a strong interest in the relationship between austerity and nationalism in European and American liberal democratic contexts, as well as the intersection between political movements and the shifting characteristics of contemporary capitalism. I am particularly interested in the relationship between neoliberalism, nationalism, populism and the Left, as well as how left-wing political parties and movements interact with right-wing actors in the region. Throughout, I am also interested in how the left-right distinction is understood ethnographically, and in ways that interrupt our expectations of ‘conservative’ versus ‘progressive’ political ideologies. 

Previously, my research interests were focused on minority language politics and the aesthetics of traditional (sean-nós) singing in the west of Ireland and in the Irish diaspora in London. Prior to my Social Anthropology degrees (MPhil, PhD) at Cambridge, I completed my liberal arts BA with a major in four-field Anthropology at Yale University, and a concentration in linguistic and biological anthropology. I wrote my undergraduate dissertation on the evolutionary genetics of colour vision in owl monkeys (Aotus) and conducted research on the impact of taxonomic designations of biodiversity among treeshrews (Scandentia) in the Malay Peninsula. The results of both projects have been published in Frontiers in Zoology, the Journal of Mammalogy, and the Biological Journal of the Linnean Society.

(neo)liberalism; liberal democracy; critique; art; activism; capitalism; socialism; imperialism; urban development; (ethno-)nationalism; labour; class; gender; abortion and reproductive health