News

When it comes to labour movements, unionised industrial workers on the factory floor have only ever been part of the picture. Across so many different workplaces, sectors of the economy and geographical contexts, the question of how working people struggle in the day-to-day has no single answer.Here Sian Lazar offers a unique anthropological perspe…

Welcome to our new Assistant Professor in Environmental Anthropology This term the Department warmly welcomes Dr Mike Degani as our Assistant Professor in Environmental Anthropology.  Mike is an anthropologist of infrastructure and energy in Africa and beyond. Having received his PhD from Yale University in 2015, he then taught in the department o…

Camthropod is the podcast of the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge. We’ve had 25 amazing episodes so far, with more in the pipeline. Ranging from interviews with visiting scholars to documentary soundscapes, all brought to us by students, research fellows, and faculty associated with the Department.  One of the recen…

At the beginning of the academic year 2020-21, the Department introduced a new joint track option in the HSPS undergraduate degree.  The joint track in Modern Religion and Social Anthropology is being run on a five-year trial basis.The new joint track option was devised following planning between the HSPS Tripos and the Theology, Religion and Philo…

Dr Ori Mautner builds on his previous successes with a four-year Junior Research FellowshipIn October 2022, Ori Mautner, a postgraduate of the Department, began a four-year Junior Research Fellowship at Christ’s College Cambridge. At Christ's, Ori will analyse unique but little-understood models and practices of living with difference among working…

Winner of the Carol R Ember Book Prize AwardDr. Juan M. del Nido has won The Carol R Ember Book Prize award for his publication, Taxis vs. Uber: Courts, Markets, and Technology in Buenos Aires.Del Nido is an economist (BHons, Universidad del CEMA) and social anthropologist (MSc, University of Edinburgh; PhD, University of Manchester) who, after a 2…

Winners announced in the 2022 Postgraduate Fieldwork Photographic CompetitionThe Department of Social Anthropology is delighted to announce the winners in this year’s Postgraduate Fieldwork Photographic Competition.The judges found it even more challenging than usual to rank this year’s submissions, because they were all excellent in quality, as we…

The Department of Social Anthropology is delighted to add the top ranking position for Anthropology as part of the Human, Social and Political Sciences degree at the University of Cambridge in the Guardian's latest guide, to their list of former external recommendations from QS World University Rankings in 2018; the Complete University Guide in 202…

Cambridge researcher involved in British Sign Language translation first for anthropological journalKnowing by DEAF Listening, by Kelly Fagan RobinsonDr Kelly Fagan Robinson, a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, Research Fellow and Postgraduate Tutor at Clare Hall has since 2007 worked alongside Deaf professional artists, advocates and activists. Robi…

The Department was sad to hear of the death of James Woodburn, one of the best-known anthropologists of hunter-gatherer and egalitarian societies.James Woodburn taught at the LSE for many years. He was an alumnus of Cambridge and a good friend to our Department. He started studying History at Christ's College, but then was quickly diverted to natio…

Dr Timothy Cooper has been awarded the 2021-2022 Claremont Prize for the Study of Religion for his manuscript Public Demand: Film, Islam, and Atmosphere in a Pakistani Marketplace. The Claremont Prize is awarded by the Institute for Religion, Culture, and Public Life at Columbia University to support and promote cutting-edge scholarship by early ca…

COLOUR is an exciting new exhibition opening at the University of Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology on 26 July 2022. Using an anthropological approach, the project integrates work across arts, humanities and sciences with collections-based research and consultation with specialists, Indigenous experts, student groups and community st…

The Max Planck Cambridge Centre for Ethics, Economy, and Social Change, which was officially launched in 2018 supporting a group of six postdoctoral projects under four co-directors, has been, and is expected to continue as, a driver for interdisciplinary research at the intersection of the anthropology of ethics and economic anthropology.   The Ce…

We are enormously saddened to have received the news that Mantas Kvedaravicius, a former student of our Department (PhD in Social Anthropology, 2014), was killed by the Russian forces in Mariupol, Ukraine. Mantas was a brilliant anthropologist and uniquely talented ethnographic and documentary filmmaker, well-known through his films Barzakh (2011) …

The Department of Social Anthropology is delighted to welcome Dr Natalia Buitron to the Jessica Sainsbury Lectureship in the Anthropology of Amazonia, from January this year.  Dr Natalia Buitron, a Fellow of Jesus College, specialises in political subjectivities, indigeneity, and development.  She is the first to be appointed to this endowed post.S…