Dr Joana Nascimento

Dr Joana Nascimento is a social anthropologist and ESRC research fellow. Her research explores ethnographically the social, cultural and political-economic complexities of contemporary work and livelihood strategies, focusing on people’s everyday experiences and their relation to particular pasts and imagined futures.

Joana’s first book, titled Working the Fabric (2023), was informed by thirteen months of ethnographic fieldwork in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. This peer-reviewed monograph focuses on the work, workers and workplaces involved in the production of Harris Tweed – a renowned woollen textile that has been trademark-protected since 1910 and can only be hand-woven in these islands, but is exported to over 50 countries around the world. Published by Berghahn in 2023, the book offers an intimate account of workers’ lived experiences, considering the industry’s enmeshment in fluctuating global markets, and contributing to anthropological debates on work and labour, cultural production, inclusive belonging and place-making in contemporary capitalism.

Joana is the PI in an ESRC-funded project titled Rethinking work, social reproduction and ‘sustainable futures’ in contemporary capitalism: perspectives from the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. Building on her previous research in the region, this project looks beyond the islands’ iconic textile industry to examine the complex interplay of individual strategies and collective projects aimed to protect livelihoods, avoid depopulation, and cultivate ‘sustainable futures’ – from individual projects of occupational pluralism and householding practices; to the emergence of social enterprises and co-operative ventures; and the recent surge in community development trusts, land buy-outs and renewable energy projects. Aiming to learn about the social, moral and economic implications of these resourceful strategies and outlooks, this project explores how ethnographic research, social reproduction theory and an expanded concept of 'work' may inform our understanding of the ways in which livelihood strategies and 'sustainable futures' are variously being imagined, negotiated, contested and 're-worked' by local actors in the present.

Joana holds a PhD in Social Anthropology from the University of Manchester, an MPhil in Social Anthropology from the University of Cambridge, and a BA (Hons) in Product Design from the University of Lisbon – Faculty of Fine Arts.