Emeritus Reader
Member
- Name:
- Dr John R Campbell
- Email address:
- jc58@soas.ac.uk
- Address:
- SOAS University of London
Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG
- Building:
- Russell Square: College Buildings
Internal Supervisors
Biography
John joined the Department in September 2001 as a Senior Lecturer and retired in October 2018 as a Reader in the Anthropology of Law and Africa. During this period, and in addition to his teaching, he was the Associate Dean of Research in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities (2002-2005), Head of Department (2010-2012), and Chair of the Department Research Committee and Member the SOAS Research Excellence Framework 2021 Coordination Committee (2017-2018).
During this period John was a member of: (i) the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council Peer Review College (2005-2018); (ii) the Governing Board, Human Rights Concern-Eritrea. London (2011-present); (iii) the Advisory Board of the Platform on Disaster Displacement Advisory Committee, Geneva. (2015-2018); and (iv) the `Directory of Experts on Conditions of Origin and Transit’. I have written over five hundred ‘Expert Reports’ for Ethiopian and Eritrean asylum seekers and I have been invited to participate in: (a) ‘Asylum adjudication and Country Guidance: Function, Operation and Future’. The Nuffield Foundation & International. Association of Refugee Judges Seminar. London. May 2009 and (b) ‘Country of Origin Information and Due Process: Roundtable’, May 2012. UNHCR, The International Association of Refugee Law Judges and the Refugee law Initiative. London.
In addition, I have: (i) been a participant in a one-day colloquium on ‘Constitutional Design Solutions for Eritrea.’ University of Ottawa. Canada. October 2014; (ii) submitted evidence to All Party Parliamentary Group on Eritrea. Invitation to submit evidence on the on-going exodus of Eritreans. Portcullis House, London (2016); (iii) submitted evidence to the All Party Parliamentary Group on Refugees. Invitation to submit evidence on Home Office Policy on Eritrea. House of Commons, London. (2016); (iv) helped review Foreign & Commonwealth Office Policy Engagement with Eritrea (2017)’ (v) provided an ‘overview of the Horn of Africa & Eastern Africa’ to UK Ministry of Defense Sub-Saharan Africa Training Program (2017-2018); finally (vi) asked to attend Her Majesties Courts Service-ESRC Workshop on Vulnerable Court Users. London (2018).
I am member of the Association of Social Anthropologists (UK) and of the African Studies Association (UK), and a Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute, London.
On retirement I became an Academic Visitor at the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, University of Oxford attached to the European Research Council’s funded project ‘Cultural Expertise in Europe: What is it useful for? (EURO-EXPERT)’. In 2018 I was made a Fellow of McLaughlin College, York University. Toronto.
In 2020 I accepted the post of Editor-in-Chief of the recently launched, open access journal Open Anthropological Research by de Gruyter Publishing.
Research for my doctorate was conducted in the town of Koforidua, Ghana in the mid-1970’s on aspects of the political economy of urban development. Immediately following the defence of my thesis I went to the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania where I taught in the sociology department for four years (1981-1984) where I became involved in archival and policy-based research on the city of Dar es Salaam. After leaving Tanzania I was a Research Associate at the University of Sussex (1985-1986) following which I worked for Oxfam-UK in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (1987-88) where I was responsible for setting up a five-year slum-upgrading project to address issues of inadequate shelter, water, employment and the absence of primary health care. I also assisted Oxfam’s rural development projects. In 1990 I re-entered academic life in the Department of Anthropology at The Queen’s University of Belfast, Northern Ireland as a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow where I began to write up material on Ethiopian development.
In 1991 I joined the University of Wales, Swansea as a lecturer in social anthropology where I taught and became increasingly engaged in international development as a social development adviser at the Centre of Development Studies. Some of the projects I was involved with included: the World Bank Poverty Mission to Kenya (1994); a study of the NGO sector in Ethiopia (1996); evaluation and co-management of UK-DfID funded project Botswana Range Improvement Project based in the Ministry of Agriculture in Gaborone, Botswana (1996-98); a review for UK DfID of Kenyan Civil Society (1998); an evaluation of the Kwale Rural Support Program funded by The Aga Khan Foundation and the Department for International Development (UK), Nairobi (Kenya, 1999); and a review of UK DfID’s Kenya Direct Funding Initiative (1999).
I joined SOAS in 2001 and my interests focused increasingly on development and refugees. Between January 2007 and January 2009, I undertook fieldwork funded by the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council (Grant RES-062-23-0296) entitled "Refugees and the Law: An ethnography of the British Asylum System". This research sought to follow refugees from Eritrea and Ethiopia who were seeking asylum in the UK. Following that period of fieldwork, I have published two books and numerous papers on the British Asylum System and refugees. In 2016-17 I undertook fieldwork in Magistrate’s Courts across London to understand the quality of (in)justice in these courts.
Campbell, John (2017) Bureaucracy, Law and Dystopia in the United Kingdom's Asylum System. Abingdon; New York: Routledge.
Campbell, John (2015) Nationalism, Law and Statelessness: Grand Illusions in the Horn of Africa. London; New York: Routledge.
Campbell, John (2013) Nationalism, Law and Statelessness: Grand Illusions in the Horn of Africa. Oxford: Routledge.
Campbell, John (2020) 'The quality of (in)justice in London's magistrates' courts'. Anthropology Today, (36) 5, pp 3-5.
Campbell, John R (2020) 'The Role of Lawyers, Judges and Country Experts in British Asylum and Immigration Law'. International Journal of Law in Context, (16) 1, pp 1-16.
Campbell, John (2020) 'Examining Procedural Unfairness and Credibility Findings in the UK Asylum System'. Refugee Survey Quarterly, (39) 1, pp 56-75.
Campbell, John (2018) 'Can Law Achieve Happiness? Critical Reflections on Criminal Justice'. Journal of Comparative Law, (13) 2, pp 21-32.
Campbell, John and Afework, Solomon (2015) 'Ethiopian and Eritrean immigrants in Britain. Refugee Organising, Transnational Connections and Identity, 1950-2009'. African Diaspora, (8) 1, pp 98-119.
Campbell, John (2015) 'Asylum vs sovereignty in the 21st century: How nation-state's breach international law to block access to asylum.'. International Journal of Migration and Border Studies.
Campbell, John (2013) 'Language analysis in the United Kingdom's refugee status determination system: seeing through policy claims about ‘expert knowledge’'. Ethnic and Racial Studies, (36) 4, pp 670-690.
Campbell, John and Yaron, Hadas and Hashimshony-Yaffe, Nurit (2013) '"Infiltrators" or refugees? An analysis of Israel's policy towards African asylum seekers'. International Migration, pp 1-13.
Campbell, John R (2011) 'The Enduring Nature of Stateless in The Horn of Africa: How Nation-States and Western Courts (re) define Nationality'. International Journal of Refugee Law, (23) 4, pp 656-679.
Campbell, John (2010) 'The 'problem' of ethics in contemporary anthropological research'. Anthropology Matters, (12) 1, pp 1-17.
Campbell, John (2009) 'Caught between the ideology and realities of development:
Transiting from the Horn of Africa to Europe'. The LSE Migration Study Group Working Paper 2009/01 1, pp 1-29.
Campbell, John (2008) 'International Development and Bilateral Aid to Kenya in the 1990s'. Journal of Anthropological Research, (64) 2, pp 249-267.
Campbell, John (2006) 'Who are the Luo? Oral tradition and disciplinary practices in history and anthropology'. Journal of African Cultural Studies, (18, no).
Campbell, John (2005) 'Theory and Method in the Study of Poverty in East Africa'. Focaal, (45), pp 56-68.
Campbell, John and Holland, Jeremy (2005) 'Convergent or Divergent Understandings of Poverty: Key issues in Development Research'. Focaal: European Journal of Social Anthropology, (2005) 45, pp 3-17.
Campbell, John and Holland, J (2005) 'Development Research: convergent or divergent understandings of poverty? An Introduction'. Researching Poverty, special issue of Focaal - European Journal of Social Anthropology, (45), pp 3-17.
Campbell, John (2005) 'Development research: convergent or divergent approaches and understandings of poverty? An introduction'. Focaal: European Journal of Social Anthropology, (45), pp 3-17.
Campbell, John (2004) 'Ethnic Minorities and Development: A Prospective Look at the Situation of African Pastoralists and Hunter-Gatherers'. Ethnicities, (4) 1, pp 5-26.
Campbell, John (2002) 'A Critical Appraisal of Participatory Methods in Development Research'. International Journal of Social Research Methodology, (vol. 5), pp 19-30.
Campbell, John (2001) 'Participatory Rural Appraisal as Qualititative Research: Distinguishing Methodological Issues from Participatory Claims'. Human Organization, (Vol. 6), pp 380-89.
Campbell, John (1999) 'Nationalism, ethnicity and religion: Fundamental conflicts and the politics of identity in Tanzania'. Nations and Nationalism, (5) 1, pp 105-25.
Campbell, John (1994) 'Constraints on sustainable development in Ethiopia: Is there a future for improved wood-stoves?'. Public Administration and Development, (14) 1, pp 19-36.
Campbell, John (1994) 'Urbanisation, Culture and the politics of urban development in Ghana, 1875-1980'. Urban Anthropology and Studies of Cultural Systems and World Economic Development, (23) 4, pp 409-450.
Campbell, John (1991) 'Land or Peasants? The Dilemma Confronting Ethiopian Resource Conservation'. African Affairs, (90) 358, pp 5-21.
Campbell, John (1988) 'Tanzania and the World Bank's Urban Shelter Project: Ideology and International Finance'. Review of African Political Economy, (15) 42, pp 5-18.
Campbell, John (1984) 'Class and State in the Political Economy of Ghana, 1957-1979'. Mawazo, (5) 4, pp 82-97.
Holland, Jeremy and Campbell, John, (eds.), (2005) Methods in Development Research: Combining quantitative and qualitative methods. Rugby: Practical Action Pub..
Campbell, John and Holland, Jeremy, (eds.), (2004) Quantitative and Qualitative Methods in Development. London: Intermediate Technology Group.
Campbell, John and Rew, Alan, (eds.), (1999) Identity and Affect: Experiences of Identity in a Globalising World. London: Pluto Press.
Campbell, John R (2020) 'Guilt by Association: Contrasting views on the fairness of ‘secret trials’ of ‘terrorists’'. In: Simeon, James, (ed.), Terrorism and Asylum. The Netherlands: Brill Njihoff. [Forthcoming]
Campbell, John R (2019) 'Analysing public policy in the UK : Seeing through the secrecy, obfuscation and obstruction of the FOIA by the Home Office'. In: Walby, Kevin and Luscombe, Andrew, (eds.), Freedom of Information and Social Science Research Design. New York: Routledge, pp 173-190.
Campbell, John (2019) 'Conflicting Perspectives on the ‘Migrant Crisis’ in the Horn of Africa'. In: Menjivar, C and Ruis, M and Ness, I, (eds.), The Oxford handbook of migration crises. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Campbell, John (2019) 'The World of Home Office Presenting Officers'. In: Gill, Nick and Good, Anthony, (eds.), Asylum Determination in Europe: Ethnographic Perspectives. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, pp 91-108.
Campbell, John (2015) 'Expert Evidence in British Asylum Courts: The Judicial Assessment of Evidence on Ethnic Discrimination and Statelessness in Ethiopia'. In: Berger, Iris and Redeker Hepner, Tricia and Lawrance, Ben and Tague, Joanna T. and Terretta, Meredith, (eds.), African Asylum at the Cross Roads. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, pp 102-120.
Campbell, John (2006) 'Corruption and the one-party state in Tanzania: A view from Dar es Salaam, 1964-2000'. In: West, H and Raman, P, (eds.), Enduring Socialism : Explorations of Revolution and Transformation, Restoration and Continuation. New York, NY: Berghahn Books.
Campbell, John (2003) 'Defining the Limits of a Discourse. 'Social Capital' in Africa'. In: Moseley, P. and Dowler, E., (eds.), Poverty and Exclusion in North and South. Essays on Social Policy and Global Poverty Reduction.. London: Routledge, pp 149-164.
Campbell, John (2002) 'Dar es Salaam'. In: Ember, M and Ember, C, (eds.), Encyclopedia of Urban Cultures. Danbury, CT: Human Relations Area Files & Grollier Publishing Co, pp 115-121.
Campbell, John (2002) 'GIS and inter-disciplinary research: What counts as knowledge?'. In: Sillitoe, P. and Bicker, A. and Pottier, J., (eds.), Participating in Development: Approaches to Indigenous Knowledge. New York: Routledge, pp 189-205.
Campbell, John (2002) 'Interdisciplinary Research and GIS. Why Local and Indigenous Knowledge Are Discounted'. In: Sillitoe, P. and Bicker, A. and Pottier, J., (eds.), Participating in Development. Approaches to Indigenous Knowledge.. London: Routledge, pp 189-205.
Campbell, John (2001) 'Drawing a line between autonomy and Governance: The state, civil society and NGOs in Ethiopia'. In: O.Barrow, and Jennings, M, (eds.), The Charitable Impulse. NGOs and Development in East and North East Africa. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian, pp 149-66.
This list was last generated on Wednesday, 21st October 2020, 14:14 Europe/London.