Social Anthropology
Social Anthropology at Edinburgh is a major international centre of undergraduate and postgraduate training, and we offer regional specialisations in Africa, South Asia and Latin America. We are also one of the premier research departments in the United Kingdom. Rooted in a strong disciplinary tradition our research asks challenging questions about contemporary global problems, putting us at at the cutting edge of Social Anthropology.
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‘Still there’: mediating personhood, temporality, and care in London Alzheimer’s Society support groups
(The University of Edinburgh, 2019-11-25)This thesis is an investigation of the lives of people living with dementia and their families to explore how and why the ‘social death’ of the disease is mitigated through everyday practices of care. Findings are based ... -
Rhythms that matter: the kinetic melodies and matterings of autism and equine therapy practices in the UK and USA.
(The University of Edinburgh, 2019-11-25)This thesis is an ethnography of practices of equine therapy used as interventions for autistic people in the UK and USA. It answers the overarching research question: How is autism enacted by models used to understand ... -
Troubled rainbows: an anthropological study of LGB communities and sectarianism in Northern Ireland
(The University of Edinburgh, 2019-11-25)This thesis examines the intersection of LGB communities with sectarianism in Northern Ireland. Against the widespread notion, maintained both within and outside LGB circles, that there was no space for divisions within ... -
Espiritista-as-woman, woman-as-mother: the gendering of practice in Espiritismo Cruzado
(The University of Edinburgh, 2019-11-25)Based on 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Habana, this thesis examines Espiritismo Cruzado, an African diaspora religious tradition enmeshed in the wider matrix of Cuban religiosity of African origin, or as my ... -
Tree of knowledge, tree of life: materials, intimacy and being Creole in London and Seychelles
(The University of Edinburgh, 2019-11-25)This thesis interrogates discourses of kreolite (Creoleness) in the small island state of Seychelles, and among the Seychellois diaspora in London. While the literature on creolization often treats it as mobile and ... -
Biosocial journeys: care and community in experiences of body-focused repetitive behaviours
(The University of Edinburgh, 2019-11-25)This thesis follows the emergence of a biosocial community and shows the importance of social relations for British and American people living with body-focused repetitive behaviours (BFRBs). It is based on sixteen months ... -
‘Most of the days is really, really good’: narratives of well-being and happiness among asylum seekers and refugees in the UK and the Gambia
(The University of Edinburgh, 2019-07-08)This thesis demonstrates resilience and the ability to enjoy life despite hardships. While most studies of refugees and asylum seekers focus on issues of trauma and ill-health, this thesis attends to both positive and ... -
Empire circumscribed: silence, disconnection, public secrets, and the absent-presence of the British Empire in Bristol
(The University of Edinburgh, 2019-07-08)This thesis explores the ways in which the British Empire is understood and represented in historical discourse and heritage practice in the city of Bristol. It attempts to develop a wider literature on metropolitan ... -
Warrior women: contested understandings of violence and gender in Highland Mexico
(The University of Edinburgh, 2019-07-08)Based on 15 months of ethnographic research in Milpa Alta, a rural, southern municipality of Mexico City, this thesis focuses on local understandings and contestations surrounding “violence against Indigenous women”, ... -
Hit and move: boxing and belonging in Accra, Ghana
(The University of Edinburgh, 2019-07-08)This thesis builds on 19 months of ethnographic fieldwork with the boxing community of Accra, Ghana. Having trained and competed alongside boxers in Ga Mashie, the area of central Accra strongly associated with the sport, ... -
Opening the Waiwai ewto: indigenous social and spatial relations in Guyana
(The University of Edinburgh, 2019-07-08)This thesis presents an indigenous analysis of social and spatial relations in southern Guyana through the histories, perspectives and practices of people in Masakenyarï, considered by its approximately 250 residents to ... -
In the shadows of death: an existential approach to mortality in the Sinja Valley of Western Nepal
(The University of Edinburgh, 2019-07-08)Based upon 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork, this thesis explores how people in the Sinja Valley of Jumla District (western Nepal) endeavour to make sense of existence through their engagement with mortality. ... -
Gardens in Cyprus: reflections of being and doing
(The University of Edinburgh, 2004)Cyprus is a place that, particularly over recent months, is beginning to dismantle the scaffolding of political deadlock that has blighted the country for the past thirty years. The Turkish invasion of 1974 happened only ... -
Inhabiting images: Ju|'hoansi, San and others
(The University of Edinburgh, 2018-11-27)The Kalahari San or Bushmen are one of the most researched ethnic groups. As such, multiple images, produced by research, popular literature and films exist of them. Tsumkwe, the administrative centre of what used to be ... -
Social life of health policy: an anthropological inquiry into the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and HIV/AIDS care in Atlanta, Georgia
(The University of Edinburgh, 2018-11-27)The purpose of this thesis is to ethnographically explore the social life of health reform policy. This thesis focuses on the Ponce Center, a safety net HIV clinic in Atlanta. The thesis engages with a fragmented healthcare ... -
Turbulent being(s): proliferating curses and shamanic practice in post-Soviet Kyzyl, Tuva
(The University of Edinburgh, 2018-11-27)This thesis is about curses. It shows how the mechanics of cursing are intrinsically linked to shamanic practice in the ethnographic context of social, economic and political shifts in post-Soviet Kyzyl, the capital of ... -
Social route: Peruvian psychiatrists and the politics of mental health reform
(The University of Edinburgh, 2018-11-27)This thesis is about the prospect of change in the Peruvian mental health services system as seen through the lens of public psychiatry. It is based on the depiction of the work of psychiatrists in two of Lima’s mental ... -
Social lives and afterlives of a malaria vaccine trial: partnerships in practice
(The University of Edinburgh, 2018-11-27)This thesis focuses on the development of a malaria vaccine as an avenue to explore global health partnerships. In the last twenty years, public-private partnerships have become a prominent organizational form in global ... -
‘Crusaders’ for democracy : aspirations and tensions in transparency activism in India
(The University of Edinburgh, 2015-07-01)Through an ethnographic study of the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS) – an organisation renowned for its persistent fight against corruption in India – this thesis explores the aspirations and tensions of anti-corruption ... -
Have you been eating the dead? Finding balance through natural medicine in Mexico City
(The University of Edinburgh, 2016-06-29)After a century of biomedical dominance in Mexico, multiple forms of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) are now openly being practiced throughout the country. However, almost all CAM are unrecognised and ...
