SOAS University of London

Department of Anthropology and Sociology

Current Research (MPhil/PhD) Students

Anna Cohen
Staff Silhouette

Ridley Road and Broadway Market: Food markets, social change, and the construction of community in Hackney’s ‘Urban Village’ (working title)

Ze Chen
Ze Chen

Marrying the other: Marrying the other: Local ethnic boundaries and the politics of inter-ethnic marriage on Hainan Island

Franziska Fay
Franziska Fay

Contesting the Ordinary: Children's Perspectives on 'Child Protection' in Educational Settings in Zanzibar, Tanzania.

Mikal Woldu
Mikal Woldu

A Cross-national and inter-generational investigation of Eritrean migrants in London and Milan (Working title)

Hannelore van Bavel
Hannelore Van Bavel

Tracing the construction and diffusion of the concept of 'harmful traditional practices' - a multi-sited ethnography of international efforts to eradicate 'FGM' and 'early marriage' in Kenya [working title]

Learn more about the PhD in Anthropology at SOAS.

Recently Awarded PhDs


2017
  • Clifford Collard, Niamh. Crafting Livelihoods, Negotiating Challenges and Realising Opportunities: An Ethnography of Life, Learning and Work Amongst Young Ghanaian Weavers (Dr M Janson)
  • Dorner, Jamila. Learning Bharatanatyam: Motor, Sensory and Social Enskilment in South Indian Dance (Dr S Hughes)
  • Graf, Katharina. Food in the Making: Food Preparation, Material and Social Change in Urban Morocco (Dr J Klein)
  • Kendall, Jessica. Rare Birds: A Global Ethnography of Ethiopian Circus Performers (Dr D Martinez)
  • Zhen, Willa Ying. Learning to ‘Taste’: Skills Transmission and Identity Formation in Cantonese Cooking Schools (Dr J Klein)

2016
  • Baum, Antonia. Surprising Reality: Performing Reconciliation in Israel-Palestine (Dr C Osella)
  • Boni, Zofia. Children and Food in Warsaw: Negotiating Feeding and Eating (Prof H West)
  • Costa, Alessia. Unfitting Parts: The Moral, Political, and Informal Economies of 'Japanese' Organ Transplants (Dr C Davis)
  • Elsing, Sarah. Border Regulars: An Ethnographic Enquiry into the Becomings of the Thai-Lao Border from the Vantage of Small-Scale Trade (Dr K Retsikas)
  • Janarthanan, Dhivya. The Country Near the City: Social Space and Dominance in Tamil Nadu (Prof D Mosse)
  • Jonsson, Gunvor. The End of the Railway Line. Malian Women, Mobility and Trade in Dakar (Prof Richard Fardon)
  • Karkabi, Nadeem. Neither Heroes nor Victims: Politics of Pleasure, Ethics of Resistance and Defiant-Playful Subjectivities at the Palestinian Alternative Music Scene in Israel and the West Bank (Dr K Retsikas)
  • Kumar, Amit Kisku. A Reflexive Ethnography of Santal Indigeneity and Environmentality in Jungle Mahals, India (Prof E Simpson)
  • McKenzie, Robert. Against Refugees: An Ethnography of Asylum Seeking in Egypt (Dr J Campbell / Prof Johan Pottier)
  • Senaratne, Sunari. Surviving the Wave: Reconstruction After the Tsunami on the South-Western Coast of Sri Lanka (Prof D Mosse)
  • Simpson, Sylvia. Technologies for the Self: Japanese Women in the UK and Their Media (Dr S Hughes)
  • Strava, Christiana. Everyday Struggles and the Production of Livelihoods on the Margins of Casablanca, Morocco (Prof E Simpson)
  • Zoccatelli, Giulia. Globalizing Empowerment: An Ethnography of AIDS, Heroin and Civil Society in Post-Socialist China (Dr K Latham)

2015
  • Cagat, Kathrine. Beyond the fields: Ethnographic explorations on notions and practices of sustainability in Ifugao, Philippines (Dr Fabio Gygi)
  • Irving, Miranda. Seeking Mobility and Stability: The Everyday Lives and Labours of Minangkabau Migrant Women in New Order Indonesia (Dr K Retsikas)
  • Klaeger, Gabriel. Speed Matters: An Ethnography of a Ghanaian Highway, its Perils and Potentialities (Prof Richard Fardon)
  • Murphy, Seamus. Contested Meanings through Social Change: An Ethnography of Institutions, Organisations, Ideologies and Power in the Market Development of the Lake Chilwa Commons (Prof Johan Pottier)
  • Ono, Sayako. Ballet as Liberation: Dreams, Desire and Resistance among Urban Japanese Women (Dr D Martinez)
  • Robinson, Caitlin. Becoming Beautiful: Narratives of Cosmetic Surgery and Temporality in Beirut (Dr G vom Bruck)
  • Rommel, Carl. Revolution, Play and Feeling: Assembling Emotionality, National Subjectivity and Football in Cairo, 1990-2013 (Dr S Hughes)
  • Sackey, Shirley. Ghanaian Organizations in New York and London: Transnational Concepts of Home and Belonging (Dr P Raman)
  • Warsi, Sahil. Being and Belonging in Delhi: Afghan Individuals and Communities in a Global City (Dr C Osella)