Sociocultural Anthropology Faculty

Yale University Department of Anthropology

Department of Anthropology | Sociocultural Faculty

Jafari Sinclaire Allen

Assistant Professor of Anthropology &

African American Studies

P. Sean Brotherton

Assistant Professor of Anthropology

Kamari Clarke

Professor of Anthropology

Harold C. Conklin

Crosby Professor Emeritus of Anthropology

Michael Dove

Margaret K. Musser Professor of Social Ecology

Professor of Anthropology

Kathryn M. Dudley

Professor of Anthropology & American Studies

Narges Erami

Assistant Professor of Anthropology

J. Joseph Errington

Professor of Anthropology

Erik Harms

Assistant Professor of Anthropology

Karen Hébert

Assistant Professor of Anthropology and

Forestry & Environmental Studies

Marcia C. Inhorn

William K. Lanman Jr. Professor of Anthropology

and International Affairs

William W. Kelly

Professor of Anthropology &

Sumitomo Professor of Japanese Studies

Enrique Mayer

Professor Emeritus of Anthropology

Karen Nakamura

Associate Professor of Anthropology &

East Asian Studies

Catherine Panter-Brick

Professor of Anthropology, Health, and Global Affairs

Leopold J. Pospisil

Professor Emeritus of Anthropology

Doug Rogers

Associate Professor of Anthropology

Harold Scheffler

Professor Emeritus of Anthropology

Helen Siu

Professor of Anthropology

Kalyanakrishnan ‘Shivi’ Sivaramakrishnan

Dinakar Singh Professor of India and South Asian Studies

Professor of Anthropology and Forestry & Environmental Studies

John Szwed

John M. Musser Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and African American Studies

Carol Carpenter

Senior Lecturer and Associate Research Scientist in Natural Resource Social Science and Adjunct Lecturer in Anthropology

Other Affiliated Faculty

James Scott

Sterling Professor of Political Science and Director of the Agrarian Studies Program

Secondary appointment in Department of Anthropology

Sociocultural Theme Groups

Globalization, Transnationalism and Diaspora

We explore historical and contemporary changes in urban, rural, regional and transnational configurations by focusing on movements of populations, material resources, capital, religious-legal and governmental institutions, meanings and imaginaries. Our work challenges assumptions about landscapes, spatial scales and cultures, the spread of capitalism and modernity, and present day formations. We stress processual approaches and critical, ethnographic analyses of history, power and place that reformulate disciplinary boundaries, regional frames, and state-centered approaches.

(Post)Socialisms and (Post)Colonialisms

We work in socialist, postsocialist and postcolonial parts of the world. Our historically inflected research explores emergent configurations of capital, the state, and the political. We interpret fine-grained ethnographic material in the context of transnational processes and discourses, in order to better understand emergent challenges to neoliberal common sense. These sites of contestation include socialist and postsocialist networks, postcolonial regional alliances, and the rhetoric of rights that a widening number of actors use to manage encroaching market logics.

Environment, Development, Modernity

We study the cultural, political, and economic aspects of environmental and social change in the context of regional and international histories of modernity in various part of the world. Core faculty and graduate students link Anthropology with the Program in Agrarian Studies and the combined PhD program in Anthropology and Forestry & Environmental Studies.

Medical Anthropology and Global Health

We approach health, medicine, science, biomedical technologies, and the body as objects of anthropological analysis. The interconnected issues that we pursue examine historical, cultural, environmental, economic, and political considerations to provide a comprehensive global overview of the many factors that influence the health of individuals and populations. Our projects of inquiry and critique draw on critical-interpretive medical anthropology, postcolonial, poststructuralist, science and technology, and gender and feminist studies to explore how scientific and medical discourses and practices shape and inform the lives of individuals and communities.

Media, Performance, and Representation

We focus on public and visual culture, language and power, performance and oratory, and ethnographic representation. It brings together the disciplines of linguistic anthropology, visual anthropology, and areas of feminist and queer anthropology to analyze how political power, social institutions, and the politics of identity are made visible through language, rhetoric and performance, as well as interrogates traditional methods of ethnographic fieldwork and representation.

Gender, Sexuality and Body Politics

We explore how the different forms of knowledge and their attendant discursive regimes have shaped and informed the intricate dynamics of such categories as sex, sexuality, gender, class, ethnicity, race, and disability / ability. We pay special attention to how gender roles function in society by examining both histories and contemporary theories on masculinities and socially coded gender roles as well as the role of political economy and poverty in shaping life possibilities. We engage with Queer Studies and Disability Studies in order to analyze normative and hegemonic theories of the body and social performance.