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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Bittersweet: living with sugar and kin in contemporary Scotland
(The University of Edinburgh, 2022-08-08)This thesis explores sugar consumption and kin-making in a north Edinburgh neighbourhood, and shows that sugar is central to processes of social relatedness. I argue that sugar reveals the meaning of kinship in Scotland, ... -
Holding space: friendship, care and carcerality in the UK immigration detention system
(The University of Edinburgh, 2022-06-21)Friendship and care are important as ideas and practices for people navigating the asylum and immigration system in Britain, but are conditioned by the carceral space of the Immigration Removal Centre (IRC). Detention, as ... -
Fast forward: technography of the social integration of connected and automated vehicles into UK society
(The University of Edinburgh, 2022-06-09)The emerging connected and automated vehicles (CAV) have caught much research attention in the past few years. However, a techno-centric bias in the CAV research domain implies the lack of in-depth qualitative studies. To ... -
Testing and trust: Public perceptions, expectations, and experiences of COVID-19 testing in Scotland
(Scottish Chief Scientist Office, 2021-11)COVID-19 testing is a cornerstone of long-term pandemic control. Public trust in testing is essential to the success of the government’s testing strategy. This rapid qualitative study investigated public understandings, ... -
Biblical women of influence: feminine identities, imbued bodies, and intimacy among conservative evangelicals in the Ozarks
(The University of Edinburgh, 2022-03-17)This thesis is about Christian women. It demonstrates how embodied Christian gender is intrinsically linked to ontological architecture in the ethnographic context of a semi-enclaved, pro-natalist, homeschooling conservative ... -
Being Church': agency and authenticity in a Protestant revival movement in Scotland
(The University of Edinburgh, 2021-11-22)This thesis explores Protestant mission, discipleship, and church reform in urban Scotland. It builds upon fourteen months of ethnographic research on Cairn: a Christian movement launched in Edinburgh in 2015/16 which ... -
Making mothers, making fathers: the transition to parenthood in Edinburgh
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-11-30)This thesis investigates women and men’s experiences of the transition to parenthood in Edinburgh, UK, in the context of changing laws on parental leave and notions of ‘new fatherhood.’ In the UK, policies and care in ... -
Contending with space and time: the navigation of class, marriage, and identity by Chinese temporary migrants in the UK
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-07-22)The dominant discourses on young Chinese middle-class transnational migration, especially in the form of educational migration to developed western countries, view such movement as part of personal and family strategies ... -
Armed intimacy: in pursuit of security and self with gun rights activists in Southern California
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-08-06)This thesis explores how a desire to own guns is constituted within locally situated human lives in an attempt to explain why firearms have become such important objects of contestation in the United States. I spent a ... -
Being and becoming Jewish: kinship, memory, and the politics of Jewishness in post-socialist Slovakia
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-08-06)This thesis, based on fourteen months of ethnographic fieldwork, examines the entanglement of kinship, religion and politics among Jews in Bratislava. It uses marriage as a lens to explore how young Jews identify with ... -
Political afterlives of Mexico's dead and disappeared
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-07-06)This PhD thesis is a study of Mexican activism that aims to show how relatives of Mexico’s disappeared—often without earlier experience of human rights advocacy—become activists protesting violence through public displays ... -
Faces of shame, masks of development: recognition and oil palm among the Baining of Papua New Guinea
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-07-06)This thesis explores the role of “shame” in the Vir Kairak Baining people’s understanding of the relationships that underpin positive social change. Previous studies of shame in the context of colonial and postcolonial ... -
Order from chaos: agonism and salvation among Khmer Evangelical Christians in Phnom Penh, Cambodia
(The University of Edinburgh, 2020-01-31)This thesis is about Christian salvation in the Khmer world. It ethnographically investigates the everyday religious experiences of poor-to-middle class Khmer evangelical Christians who have predominantly migrated from ... -
‘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 ...
