Outputs from the RAI Public Anthropology Fellowship
Being a Fellow in Public Anthropology at the RAI during the plague times has been challenging to say the least, but has also meant that the resources produced have been primarily online and therefore can reach more people. Here are two outputs from the Fellowship that I am particularly proud of, co-produced with Dr Jennifer Cearns.
This exhibition explores human lives around the world through comics, drawings, and paintings of anthropological research. From those who use illustration as a fieldwork method, to others who partner with artists and research participants to tell stories, this exhibition draws together a wide range of ways that contemporary anthropologists are illustrating anthropology.
Over 120 people responded to our open call, from which we chose 62 people to feature. The entries to the exhibition were also judged by Dr Benjamin Dix, Founding Director of PositiveNegatives, who produce comics, animations, and podcasts about social and humanitarian issues.
The exhibition website launched in September 2021 and has so far received over 9,000 visitors from 106 countries. We also have a corresponding Instagram account with nearly 1000 followers where we have been slowly releasing the works and interacting with the growing audience.
This level of engagement really demonstrates the appetite for anthropology presented in creative visual forms, and I am so thrilled with this result. We showed the physical exhibition at the Open Eye Gallery in Liverpool in November 2020 as part of the national Being Human festival of the humanities. As soon as covid allows, we are planning a week-long exhibition at Bloc Projects in Sheffield, along with a roundtable discussion that will hopefully also be live-streamed.
Many people have also been in touch to let us know that they are using the site in their teaching. To help students get the most out of the exhibition we have just released a Learning Pack which presents the various (and often overlapping) ways that illustration is being used by contemporary anthropologists. The pack includes practical and discussion-based activities which can be done in and out-side of the classroom. I would love to feature any results of student engagement with the learning pack on the blog, and have just published the first student showcase from a UCL alumna here who demonstrates the potential of mixed media collage for illustration. I see the exhibition blog as a continually evolving space for showcasing experiments in anthropological illustration, so do get in touch if you would like to be involved.
For anyone who would like to engage in more regular discussion about all things graphic anthropology, and share projects, ideas, and resources, please do join this new community workspace set up on Slack.
Another output of the fellowship is the ‘Being Human’ podcast featuring conversations between anthropologists working on similar topics.
Ageing Well
In this episode I am joined by Dr Matthew Lariviere (University of Sheffield), Dr Jason Danely (Oxford Brookes University), and Dr Iza Kavedžija (University of Exeter) to discuss ageing - from the opportunities that come with later life, to the often negative imagination of ageing in popular discourse. What does it mean to age well, and how is this culturally constructed in different parts of the world?
Illustrating Anthropology
Joining me on this episode are Dr Charlie Rumsby (Coventry Univeristy, Dr Benjamin Dix (Founder of PostiveNegatives), and Dr Letizia Bonanno (University of Kent) to discuss how anthropologists are turning to illustration to tell the stories from their research. We talk about how drawings and comics can help to reveal the human lives at the centre of anthropology..
What does it mean to care?
In this episode I talk with Dr Annelieke Driessen (LSHM), Dr Simon Cohn (LSHM), and Dr Erica Borgstrom (Open University) to discuss their research understanding the forms of work that constitutes palliative care.
COVID-19, the State, & BAME Communities
This episode features Dr Tamara Dragadze, Dr Igor Cherstich (University College London), and Dr Ashraf Hoque (University College London) discussing the disproportionate impact COVID-19 has had upon BAME communities, and the implications of this both for society at large, and for anthropology as a discipline.