The School of Geographical Sciences at the University of Bristol is proud to host the 2014 Bassett lecture. This year’s presenter is Professor Tim Ingold from the University of Aberdeen.

Abstract

To make, we commonly think, is to implement a design that has already come within reach of the imagination; to do is to carry out the operations that such implementation requires. If making puts the emphasis on the final product, doing emphasises the performances that lead to it. Growing, on the other hand, is what happens to things – it is what they undergo. Where making and doing are active and intentional, growing and undergoing are passive and biophysical. In this lecture I question these distinctions, and aim to establish a sense of making-as-growing, and of doing-as-undergoing: a kind of action without agency that is characteristic of lives that are not just lived but led. Such lives are human.

Biography

Tim Ingold is a Professor of Anthropology in the School of Social Science at the University of Aberdeen. His interests include environmental perception, language, technology and skilled practice, art and architecture, creativity, theories of evolution in anthropology, human-animal relations, and ecological approaches in anthropology. Recent books include ‘Making: Anthropology, Archaeology, Art and Architecture’ (Routledge, 2013), ‘Biosocial Becomings: Integrating Social and Biological Anthropology’ (co-edited, CUP, 2013), and ‘Being Alive: Essays on Movement, Knowledge and Description’ (Routledge, 2011).

The Bassett Lecture

The Bassett Lecture is held every year in honour of Dr. Keith Bassett, a critical geographer and long-time Senior Lecturer in the School of Geographical Sciences. Although formally retired, Dr. Bassett continues to write, teach, and contribute to the intellectual life of the School and University. The lecture series recognizes Dr. Bassett's work and contributions in the fields of social and geographical theory, critical geographies of political economy, urbanism, social movements and social justice, political ecology, and critical socio-legal studies. Prof. Ingold’s January lecture will be the fourth in the series. In past years the lecture has been given by Prof. Erik Swyngedouw (Manchester),and Prof. Melissa Wright (Penn State). 

Further information

All welcome, no booking required. For further enquiries, please contact Tom Roberts (tom.roberts@bristol.ac.uk) or Joanna Mann (joanna.mann@bristol.ac.uk).