Bristol Anthropology and Archaeology Research Seminars (BAARS) is a weekly seminar series hosted by our department, where we invite academic staff and lecturers across the four fields of anthropology to present their current and ongoing research.

Each talk is followed by a Q&A.

Seminars take place every Wednesday during term time from 13.00-14.30.  Location: G10, Department for Anthropology and Archaeology, University of Bristol 43, Woodland Road, BS8 1UU, ground floor.
Access information: https://www.accessable.co.uk/university-of-bristol/access-guides/43-woodland-road

Please join in for an informal lunch with the presenter, staff and students beforehand (12.00–13.00), bring your own lunch. Non-alcoholic drinks, nibbles and tea/coffee with biscuits are provided. All welcome!

Conveners: Theresia Hofer (Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology) and William Tantam (Lecturer in Anthropology)

Spring 2024, Wednesdays 1.00-2.30pm

24 Jan - Dr Evan Killick (University of Sussex)
Sustained Destruction: Cattle, Roads, and ‘Sustainable Development’ around a Communal Reserve in Peruvian Amazonia

7 Feb - Dr Fanny Froelich (University of Bristol)
Local Meets Global: Gender and Social Transformation in International Cross-Cultural Develop-ment Work in Ghana

14 Feb - Dr Amishi Panwar (University of Bristol)
The ‘micro’ in AMR: Exploring healthcare practices in Baddi, India

6 Mar - Dr James Staples (Brunel University)
From leprosy to ground zero: imagining futures in a world of elimination in South India.

People disabled by leprosy – whether impaired by its physical effects or by negative social reactions to those affected by the disease – have been constituted in different ways historically, which are reflected by the terms used to describe them. The late fourteenth century label of “leper”—objected to by twentieth century NGOs and activists as stigmatising—has, at least for key stakeholders in the leprosy field, been replaced first by “leprosy patient” and, in a bid to emphasise the person ahead of the disease, by “person affected by leprosy.” These phrases, which don’t necessarily map neatly on to the terms used by my interlocutors in South India, also reflect the broader socio-historical contexts in which they emerge. Arguing that the person affected by leprosy has been imagined as a particular kind of modern subject, in this paper I want to think about the implications of global campaigns for Zero Leprosy – which, in common with other health campaigns, focus on elimination – on the present and futures of people whose lives have been shaped by leprosy.

13 Mar - Dr Ed Pulford (University of Manchester)
Past Progress: Time and Politics at the Borders of China, Russia, and Korea

20 Mar - Dr Eve Derenne (University of Bristol)
Archers and their beakers? Challenges in interpreting the first pan-European archaeological phenomenon at the dawn of the Bronze Age

1 May - Dr Stuart Prior (University of Bristol)
Anarchy, Civil War & Rebellion in the Southwest