Henrietta L. Moore

TEDxOxbridge: “Timeless Ideas”,

HLM — Wed, 22 May 2013 11:50:05 +0000

Throughout history, the Oxford and Cambridge communities have been home to Nobel Peace Prize winners, disruptive start-ups, world-renowned musicians, and championship winning athletes. TEDxOxbridge draws on these powerful communities to challenge previous boundaries and broaden thought horizons.

In history, we memorialize the past and teach our children about those individuals who shaped our present. Those individuals whose ideas have resonated throughout time, whose words reverberate through the halls of history.

Join Henrietta L. Moore at this year’s TEDxOxbridge event, themed “Timeless Ideas”, exploring the ideas and initiatives that have stood strong throughout the evolution of our society.

Visit the TEDxOxbridge site: http://www.tedxoxbridge.com/program/

The Art of Being Lost

HLM — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 14:00:26 +0000

Smartphones and satellite technology enable us to navigate every area of our lives, but do we risk losing something in the process? Should we embrace the romance of disorientation, delight in tearing up the map and instead seek out the new, dangerous, and unexpected?

Director of Shackleton, Charles Sturridge, writer and documentary maker Polly Morland and leading anthropologist Henrietta Moore imagine a mapless existence at “How the Light Gets In”, the Philosophy and Music Festival at Hay 2013.

Visit the Hay-Festival website:

On Disruption

HLM — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 12:45:56 +0000

We try to avoid it, we resent it, and we fear it: disruption is seen as deviation and mutation. Why? Henrietta L. Moore pleads for the defence at “How the Light Gets In”, the Philosophy and Music Festival at Hay 2013.

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Tea, Cake and Philosophy @ Hay Festival 2013

HLM — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 10:21:09 +0000

Are new forms of aesthetic delight on the rise, and if so, what will be the consequences for our culture? Join artist Sokari Douglas Camp and Henrietta L. Moore in the pavilion for tea, cake and a continuation of the the conversation from the Hay Festival-debate “The New Beautiful” (earlier on the same day).

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Hell’s Angels

HLM — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 08:00:08 +0000

From John Milton to the Chapman Brothers, artists and poets have delighted in visions of Hell, whilst Heaven is often nowhere to be seen. Does this mean we have lost our way? Should we seek secular visions of heaven or abandon these remanants of medieval superstition?

Film directors Charles Sturridge and Sally El Hosaini, leading anthropologist Henrietta Moore, and Somerset Maugham Prize-winner Marcel Theroux imagine heaven and hell at “How the Light Gets In”, the Philosophy and Music Festival at Hay 2013.

Visit the Hay Festival website:

Personal Matters: Intimacy and Exclusion in Africa and Europe

HLM — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 08:32:24 +0000

The talk will discuss recent mass protests over gay marriage in France, LGBT activism in Uganda and circumcision in Kenya in relation to public debate and national politics.

Visit the University of Toronto website: http://anthropology.utoronto.ca/news-amp-events/events/past-events/mar.-8-henrietta-l.-moore

BBC World Service podcast: The Why Factor

HLM — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 15:14:42 +0000

Why do different cultures mark ‘coming of age’? Why is there so much variety between cultures? For some the advent of adulthood is celebrated by lavish parties, for others, by endurance tests and initiation ceremonies. Henrietta L. Moore gives her opinion for the BBC World Service programme The Why Factor with Mike Williams.

‘Coming of Age’ was first broadcast on November 9 2012. To listen to or download the podcast go to The Why Factor website.

Henrietta Moore and Caleb Adebayo Folorunso win British Academy Award

HLM — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 14:39:58 +0000

Professor Moore and Professor Adebayo Folorunso (University of Ibadan, Nigeria) have been awarded a British Academy International Partnerships and Mobility Award, 2013-2015.

The award will bring together a range of archaeologists, anthropologists and environmental scientists working on interdisciplinary understandings of intensive agricultural practices in Kenya, South Africa and Nigeria.

The project will be carried out with Dr Matthew Davies, University of Cambridge and British Institute in Eastern Africa, Nairobi Kenya; Professor Charles French, University of Cambridge; Professor Martin Jones, University of Cambridge; Dr Alex Schoeman, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa; Dr Kennedy Mutundu, Kenyatta University, Nairobi, Kenya; Dr Ambreena Manji, British Institute in Eastern Africa, Nairobi, Kenya.

African farming systems are often portrayed as fragile and short-lived, with low and unreliable output and this situation is often assumed to play into Africa’s continuing underdevelopment. However, long-term research combining approaches from archaeology, history, anthropology and environmental science, strongly challenge this stereotype. A number of long lived ‘Islands of Intensive Agriculture’ offer a counterpoint and the potential to develop applied approaches to environment management that build on local knowledge. Ongoing Cambridge-led work in one of these areas (Marakwet, Northwest Kenya) builds on extensive previous research and is pioneering an interdisciplinary diachronic approach to the development of this system through time while linking this knowledge to modern development and policy issues such as land and water rights and forest conservation (Moore and Davies).

With an International Partnerships and Mobility Award from the British Academy, we build on the Marakwet work to share and expand knowledge of African farming systems across the continent. Exchange of knowledge and ideas will be facilitated through three structured field workshops in each of the partner countries (Kenya, South Africa and Nigeria). Participants will be introduced to the field research in each country and will explore comparative ideas and research methods. Reciprocal field trips will give the participants not only the opportunity to observe new ways of doing and thinking, but also the chance to practically experiment with those ideas in their own research area. Focus will be placed on integrating a wide range of research techniques including historical, oral historical, ethnographic, landscape, excavation, geoarchaeological and archaeo-botanical. A final workshop in Cambridge in 2015 will introduce the African participants to a variety of scientific archaeological methods and explore the potential for further analysis and collaboration.

Talking Anthropology

HLM — Sun, 09 Dec 2012 22:47:02 +0000

In this podcast, Henrietta L. Moore talks about the meaning of the 2012 European Association of Social Anthropologists conference theme “Uncertainty and Disquiet”, the tradition of the discipline in the UK and anthropology’s contemporary challenges. She touches on issues concerning the decline of funding, increasing protests and pressures of mobility as well as open access approaches, such as the HAU Journal of Ethnographic Theory. Professor Moore gives her perspective on theoretical avenues pivotal to the discipline and her criteria for good anthropology and well-written ethnographies. She also talks about the reasons for her long-term fascination for anthropology and gives young anthropologists advice for their academic career.

The interview was recorded by Norma Deseke at the 12th conference of the European Association of Social Anthropologists in Nanterre, Paris in July 2012.

To listen to the podcast, visit the Talking Anthropology website (site opens in new window): http://www.talkinganthropology.com/2012/12/07/ta44-easa-paris-1-henrietta-l-moore/

Nicholas J. Long and Henrietta L. Moore (eds) (2012) Sociality: New Directions. New York: Berghahn.

HLM — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 09:07:23 +0000

The notion of ‘sociality’ is now widely used within the social sciences and humanities. However, what is meant by the term varies radically, and the contributors to this edited collection, through compelling and wide ranging essays, identify the strengths and weaknesses of current definitions and their deployment in the social sciences. By developing their own rigorous and innovative theory of human sociality, they re-set the framework of the debate and open up new possibilities for conceptualizing other forms of sociality, such as that of animals or materials. Cases from Asia, Africa, the Americas and Europe explore the new directions of human sociality, illuminating how and why it is transformed when human beings engage with such major issues as economic downturn, climate change, new regimes of occupational and psychological therapy, technological innovations in robotics and the creation of new online, ‘virtual’ environments. This book is an invaluable resource, not only for research and teaching, but for anyone interested in the question of what makes us social.

The book is available from Berghahn.