Welcome to the Royal Anthropological Institute
Welcome to the home page of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, a scholarly association dedicated to anthropology in all its many fields and applications.
Revisiting anthropology’s past
Treasures from the RAI’s photo archive have been featured in The Guardian online. The photo essay – part of The Guardian’s ‘In Pictures’ series – includes some of the remarkable physical type portraits taken by Northcote Thomas in Nigeria and Sierra Leone in the early twentieth century.
Thomas was an Assistant Secretary of the RAI and subsequently serves on its Council. He was also the first Government Anthropologist to be appointed by the British Colonial Office. In this capacity he conducted a series of anthropological surveys in what were then the protectorates of Southern Nigeria and Sierra Leone. During the surveys, Thomas took thousands of photographs, made hundreds of sound recordings and assembled large collections of artefacts and botanical specimens. The RAI holds the original glass plate negatives of Thomas’s photographs and is a partner in the AHRC-funded Museum Affordances / [Re:]Entanglements project that is investigating the ‘archival legacies’ of Thomas’s surveys.
Call for Papers
Karin Barber Day
Deadline: 1 December 2019
Date of Event: Thursday 30 April 2020
Location: Royal Anthropological Institute, 50 Fitzroy Street, London W1T 5BT
Professor Karin Barber was recently awarded the Presidential life-time achievement award at the RAI’s AGM. This is a new award, the first recipient of which was Professor David Parkin. As part of these awards, we intend to hold a day at the RAI discussing the work of the recipient. On this occasion, it will take place on 30 April 2020.
Call for Papers
Endangered Fieldwork
A joint seminar with the Association of Social Anthropologists and the Royal Anthropological Institute.
CALL FOR PAPERS
Deadline: 1 December 2019
Date of event: 19 March 2020
The traditional model of long-term fieldwork, at the heart of social anthropological practice for much of the twentieth century, appears to be endangered. It is increasingly difficult to gain fieldwork permission in many countries where anthropologists have formerly worked. Doubts surround the viability of participant observation in the light of regulatory frameworks, frameworks that may appear to demand compulsory open access of fieldwork data, and knowing the questions in advance that will be asked by the fieldworker.