PhD panel

In this seminar we present four rapid presentations from our new PhD graduates who will discuss ethnographic insights from their recent theses.

Image by Soheb Zaidi via Unsplash

Gender at Play: Training Affective Professionalism at Golf Courses in China

Through the lens of caddies working at golf courses in China, this paper will expand definitions of professionalism. In doing so, arguing that affective labour in the workplace is actively trained and contextually situated. 

The idea of professionalism has often been defined through a gendered, and inherently masculine, framework. In breaking down traditional understandings, the paper will introduce the concept of affective professionalism.

About the speaker

Hannah Bennett is a GTA and project coordinator at SOAS, and a graduate teaching fellow at King's College London. 

Celebrating Ambedkar Jayanti with Sex Workers in Sangli and Miraj, Maharashtra

Sex worker collectives in 1990s India, initially formed in response to the HIV/AIDS crisis, evolved from healthcare-focused projects to formal Community-Based Organisations (CBOs). These CBOs now actively advocate for sex workers' rights in political arenas, pushing for decriminalization, improved working conditions, and unionization. 

This paper contends that sex workers are reshaping their connections with the public by transforming healthcare initiatives into impactful displays of community-led social care. Using Veshya Anyay Mukti Parishad* (VAMP) in Maharashtra as an example, the paper explores how sex worker collectives leverage social networks built through Targeted Interventions and rights advocacy to celebrate Ambedkar Jayanti, asserting their complex identities as sex workers and Dalit/Bahujan women.

*Veshya Anyay Mukti Parishad (tr.): Assembly to Free Sex Workers from Injustice

About the speaker

Jo Krishnakumar is a Doctoral Candidate and Graduate Teaching Assistant at the Department of Anthropology and Sociology. They research community perceptions of identity and violence through their PhD, and their projects www.transformsouthasia.com and Almaarii

Outsider Epistemologies: An Ethnographic Journey Amongst the Far-Right in London

This paper highlights how uniform sets of far-right sentiments can validate, affirm, and empower a diverse range of groups within London. I wish to showcase how such sentiments are inextricably linked with notions of epistemic authority and various forms of knowledge, presenting that what links these diverse groups together is a fundamental rejection of mainstream culture that is seen to be subverted against their interests due to political, cultural, and even mystical reasons; an adherence to anti-system political behaviour where political discussions, experiences, and opinions are shared outside the realms of the system that is seen to be positioned against them. 

I will also be delving into the ethical complications that occurred during the fieldwork, in my writing, and in the weaving of theory with the ethnographic data.

About the speaker

Amir Massoumian is a Doctoral Candidate at the Department of Anthropology and Sociology. He is also Research Fellow at the Global Research Network on Parliaments and People, co-ordinating the Global Ethnographies of Politicians, Parliaments and People (funded by the European Research Council).

The space in between

Through what I call “artful ethnography” I will take you into the space between buildings and bailiwicks at Yangon General Hospital in Myanmar. By discussing the ethnography and its methodology of doing art to sense the world, the hospital in its multiplicity will emerge. 

In this I am asking what an anthropology of the in-between, between buildings and bailiwicks but also disciplines and methods, can add to understandings of hospitals, spaces of healthcare, and institutions, and maybe to the discipline more broadly.

About the speaker

Nora Wuttke is a social anthropologist, artist, and architectural engineer. She holds an architecture degree from Technical University Munich and is currently completing a PhD in social anthropology from SOAS University of London. As an anthropologist of infrastructure and the (built) environment, she maintains a multidisciplinary practice that combines ethnography, architecture, and arts-based sensory/visual methodologies.