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      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        May 2016

        Chagos Islanders in Mauritius and the UK

        Forced displacement and onward migration

        by Laura Jeffery, Alexander Smith

        The Chagos islanders were forcibly uprooted from the Chagos Archipelago in the Indian Ocean between 1965 and 1973. This is the first book to compare the experiences of displaced Chagos islanders in Mauritius with the experiences of those Chagossians who have moved to the UK since 2002. It thus provides a unique ethnographic comparative study of forced displacement and onward migration within the living memory of one community. Based on in-depth ethnographic fieldwork in Mauritius and Crawley (West Sussex), the six chapters explore Chagossians' challenging lives in Mauritius, the mobilisation of the community, reformulations of the homeland, the politics of culture in exile, onward migration to Crawley, and attempts to make a home in successive locations. Jeffery illuminates how displaced people romanticise their homeland through an exploration of changing representations of the Chagos Archipelago in song lyrics. Offering further ethnographic insights into the politics of culture, she shows how Chagossians in exile engage with contrasting conceptions of culture ranging from expectations of continuity and authenticity to enactments of change, loss and revival. The book will appeal particularly to social scientists specialising in the fields of migration studies, the anthropology of displacement, political and legal anthropology, African studies, Indian Ocean studies, and the anthropology of Britain, as well as to readers interested in the Chagossian case study. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        November 2023

        Intimacy and mobility in an era of hardening borders

        Gender, reproduction, regulation

        by Haldis Haukanes, Frances Pine

        This book is a collection of articles by anthropologists and social scientists concerned with gendered labour, care, intimacy and sexuality, in relation to mobility and the hardening of borders in Europe. Interrogating the relation between physical, geopolitical borders and ideological, conceptual boundaries, it offers a range of vivid and original ethnographic case studies that will capture the imagination of anyone interested in gendered migration, policies of inclusion and exclusion, and regulation of reproduction and intimacy. The book presents ethnographic and phenomenological discussions of people's changing lives as they cross borders, how people transgress and reshape moral boundaries of proper gender and kinship behaviour, and moral economies of intimacy and sexuality. It also focuses on migrants' navigation of social and financial services in their destination countries, putting questions about rights and limitations on citizenship at the core.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        August 2016

        Framing cosmologies

        by Allen Abramson, Martin Holbraad

      • Trusted Partner
      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        April 2015

        Performing Englishness

        Identity and politics in a contemporary folk resurgence

        by Trish Winter, Alexander Smith, Simon Keegan-Phipps

        Now available in paperback, Performing Englishness examines the growth in popularity and profile of the English folk arts in the first decade of the twenty-first century. In the only study of its kind, the authors explore how the folk resurgence speaks to a broader explosion of interest in the subject of English national and cultural identity. Combining approaches from British cultural studies and ethnomusicology, the book draws on ethnographic fieldwork, interviews with central figures of the resurgence and close analysis of music and dance as well as visual and discursive sources. Its presentation of the English case study calls for a rethinking of concepts such as revival and indigeneity. It will be of interest to students and scholars in cultural studies, ethnomusicology and related disciplines. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Business, Economics & Law
        June 2021

        Rigged

        Understanding 'the economy' in Brexit Britain

        by Anna Killick

        In Brexit Britain, talk of 'the economy' dominates; however, we know surprisingly little about how people understand this term. In the aftermath of the 2008 crash and decades of neoliberalism, how are understandings of 'the economy' changing, and is it the case that Remain supporters care more about 'the economy' than Leave supporters? This timely and insightful book argues that people with similar experiences of the economy share an understanding of the term, regardless of whether they supported Leave or Remain. Through extensive ethnographic research in a city on the South coast of England, Anna Killick explores what people from a range of backgrounds understand about key aspects of 'the economy', including employment, austerity, trade and the economic effects of migration.

      • Trusted Partner
        Civil service & public sector
        May 2017

        The absurdity of bureaucracy

        How implementation works

        by Nina Holm Vohnsen. Series edited by Professor Rod Rhodes

        The absurdity of bureaucracy offers a humorous ethnographic account of policy implementation set in contemporary Danish bureaucracy. Taking the reader deep into the hallways of governmental administration and municipal caseworkers' offices, the book sets out to explore what characterizes policy implementation as a mode of human agency. Using the notions of absurdity and sense-making as lenses through which to explore the dynamic relationship between a policy and its effects, the book reclaims 'implementation studies' for the qualitative sciences and emphasizes the existential dilemma that any policymaker and implementer must confront. Following step-by-step the planning and implementation of the randomized controlled trial, Active - Back Sooner, the book sets out to show that 'going wrong' is not a question of implementation failure but is in fact the only way in which implementation may happen.

      • Trusted Partner
        The Arts
        January 2012

        Art, ethnography and the life of objects

        Paris, c.1925–35

        by Julia Kelly, Marsha Meskimmon, Shearer West, Tim Barringer

        In the 1920s and 1930s, anthropology and ethnography provided new and striking ways of rethinking what art could be and the forms which it could take. This book examines the impact of these emergent disciplines on the artistic avant-garde in Paris. The reception by European artists of objects arriving from colonial territories in the first half of the twentieth century is generally understood through the artistic appropriation of the forms of African or Oceanic sculpture. The author reveals how anthropological approaches to this intriguing material began to affect the ways in which artists, theorists, critics and curators thought about three-dimensional objects and their changing status as 'art', 'artefacts' or 'ethnographic evidence'. This book analyses texts, photographs and art works that cross disciplinary boundaries, through case studies including the Dakar to Djibouti expedition of 1931-33, the Trocadéro Ethnographic Museum, and the two art periodicals Documents and Minotaure. Through its interdisciplinary and contextual approach, it provides an important corrective to histories of modern art and the European avant-garde. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        September 2020

        Realising the city

        by Camilla Lewis, Jessica Symons

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        January 2019

        Alternative countrysides

        Anthropological approaches to rural Western Europe today

        by Jeremy Macclancy

        A fresh anthropological look at a central but neglected topic: the profound changes in rural life throughout Western Europe today. As locals leave for jobs in cities they are replaced by neo-hippies, lifestyle-seekers, eco-activists, and labour migrants from beyond the EU. With detailed ethnographic examples, contributors analyse new modes of living rurally and emerging forms of social organisation. As incomers' dreams come up against residents' realities, they detail the clashes and the cooperations between old and new residents. They make us rethink the rural/urban divide, investigate regionalists' politicisation of rural life and heritage, and reveal how locals use EU monies to prop up or challenge existing hierarchies. They expose the consequences of and reactions to grand EU-restructuring policies, which at times threaten to turn the countryside into a manicured playground for escapee urbanites. This book will appeal to anyone seriously interested in the realities of rural life today.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        May 2026

        Border enclaves

        Melilla and the making of Europe’s southern periphery

        by Laia Soto Bermant

        Border enclaves examines the Spanish enclave of Melilla as a prism for understanding Europe's contemporary dislocations. Based on over a decade of ethnographic research, it explores how borders are enforced, contested and inhabited in a city suspended between Africa and Europe, colonial legacies and modern regimes. Through a polyphonic narrative following smugglers, migrants, teachers and politicians, it reveals how everyday practices and symbolic performances shape life in the enclave. Selective visibility-who is seen or erased-structures authority and exclusion. Situating Melilla within broader processes like Spain's colonial history and Europe's border restructuring, the book argues that its fragmented sovereignties and external dependencies make it a paradigmatic site for grasping Europe's precarious margins. It calls for an ethnographic lens attuned to dislocation as both lived experience and analytic tool.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        June 2026

        Cinematic nightscapes

        Documentary and ethnographic filmmaking in Cuba

        by Eleonora Diamanti, Alexandrine Boudreault-Fournier

        Cinematic Nightscapes explores how the darkness of night in contemporary Cuba becomes a powerful site for political expression, cultural imagination and artistic experimentation. As the rhythms of the day give way to night, a different Cuba emerges, one where protests take shape, marginalized voices reclaim space, and filmmakers reimagine ethnographic and documentary storytelling. This book offers a sensorial and creative journey through Cuban documentary films that engage with the night not just as backdrop, but as a central character-shaping emotions, aesthetics and socio-political discourse. Blending theory with rich visual analysis, Cinematic Nightscapes asks: How does the night alter ethnographic practice? How do Cuban filmmakers use the night to imagine new futures? Through a reflexive, multimodal approach, the book invites readers to experience the complexities of nocturnal life in Cuba, where darkness illuminates new possibilities.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        January 2025

        Expatriate

        Following a migration category

        by Sarah Kunz

        Who are expatriates? How do they differ from other migrants? And why should we care about such distinctions? Expatriate interrogates the contested category of 'the expatriate' to explore its history and politics, its making and lived experience. Drawing on ethnographic and archival research, the book offers a critical reading of International Human Resource Management literature, explores the work and history of the Expatriate Archive Centre in The Hague, and studies the usage and significance of the category in Kenyan history and present-day 'expat Nairobi'. Doing so, the book traces the figure of the expatriate from the mid-twentieth-century era of decolonisation to today's heated debates about migration.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        November 2016

        Anarchy in Athens

        An ethnography of militancy, emotions and violence

        by Nicholas Apoifis, Uri Gordon

        The battles between Athenian anarchists and the Greek state have received a high degree of media attention recently. But away from the intensity of street protests militants implement anarchist practices whose outcomes are far less visible. They feed the hungry and poor, protect migrants from fascist beatings and try to carve out an autonomous political, social and cultural space. Activists within the movement share politics centred on hostility to the capitalist state and all forms of domination, hierarchy and discrimination. Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork among Athenian anarchists and anti-authoritarians, Anarchy in Athens unravels the internal complexities within this milieu and provides a better understanding of the forces that give the space its shape.

      • Trusted Partner
        Anthropology
        March 2017

        Ageing selves and everyday life in the north of England

        Years in the making

        by Series edited by Alexander Smith, Cathrine Degnen

        Seeking to explore what it means to grow older in contemporary Britain from the perspective of older people themselves, this richly detailed ethnographic study engages in debates over selfhood and people's relationships with time. Based on research conducted in a former coal mining village in South Yorkshire, England, Cathrine Degnen explores how the category of 'old age' comes to be assigned and experienced in everyday life through multiple registers of interaction, including that of social memory, in a postindustrial context of great social transformation. Degnen argues that the complex interplay of social, cultural and physical attributes of ageing means that older people can come to have a different position in relation to time and to the self than younger people, unseating normative conventions about narrative and temporality.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        July 2022

        The looking machine

        Essays on cinema, anthropology and documentary filmmaking

        by David MacDougall

        This new collection of essays presents the latest thoughts of one of the world's leading ethnographic filmmakers and writers on cinema. It will provide essential reading for students in cinema studies, filmmaking, and visual anthropology. The dozen wide-ranging essays give unique insights into the history of documentary, how films evoke space, time and physical sensations, and the intellectual and emotional links between filmmakers and their subjects. In an era of reality television, historical re-enactments, and designer packaging, MacDougall defends the principles that inspired the earliest practitioners of documentary cinema. He urges us to consider how the form can more accurately reflect the realities of our everyday lives. Building on his own practice in filmmaking, he argues that this means resisting the pressures for self-censorship and the inherent ethnocentrism of our own society and those we film.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        April 2025

        Bordering social reproduction

        Migrant mothers and children making lives in the shadows

        by Rachel Rosen, Eve Dickson

        Bordering social reproduction explores what happens when migrants subject to policies that seek to deny them the means of life nonetheless endeavour to make and sustain meaningful lives. Developing innovative theorisations of welfare bordering, the volume provides rich ethnographic insights into the everyday lives of destitute mothers and children who are denied mainstream welfare support in the United Kingdom due to their immigration status. This book shows how enforced destitution and debt work alongside detention and deportation as part of a tripartite of exclusionary technologies of the racial state. It advances the novel concept of weathering to comprehend mother's and children's life-making practices under duress - arguing that these are neither acts of heroic resilience nor solely symptomatic of lives rendered disposable, but indications of the fragilities of repressive migration regimes and, on occasion, refusals to accept their terms of existence.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        February 2026

        Future perfect

        An imaginative ethnography of Mediterranean illegalised migration

        by Alexandra D'Onofrio

        The present volume emerges from a practice-based research that focuses on experiences of migration and border crossing during what are perceived as existential 'turning points' by the protagonists themselves. It recognizes the fundamental role that imagination plays in people's perceptions of reality, in their decisions and actions, and finally in the way they narrate their experiences. As a consequence, it makes a stance for ethnographic practice to include more creative and collaborative methodologies in order to explore such intangible and unstructured realms of existence. In particular, this ethnography developed theoretically and methodologically in close collaboration with a group of Egyptian men who crossed the Mediterranean Sea in search of better living opportunities in Italy, by engaging them through a range of the co-creative processes such as theatre improvisations, storytelling practices, collaborative filmmaking and participatory animation.

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