Current PhD students

Find out what some of our postgraduate researchers are working on.

Achniotis, Panos - Imagining the state in a global city: Urban transformation and political contestation in Barcelona
Beneš, Stan- Homelessness in Manchester from policy to practice
Calvet, Rodrigo - An 'anthropology of becoming' in Rio: urban transformation, state violence and the production of subjectivities in a Brazilian favela
Davis, Jared - The (cultural) revolution will be televised: a visual exploration of expressions of ‘human dignity’ and ‘concepts of face’ in emergent Tunisian formulations of Black Pride
Di Pasquale, Laura - Who am I? Negotiating the lived body after a traumatic event
Donno, Mattia - Counterpunch: Cuban identities, agency and narratives through the boxing body
Eggart, Claudia - Between Istanbul, Beijing, and Moscow. Mapping geopolitical transformations, translocal practices, and emotional geographies from the perspective of female traders in globalising Kyrgyzstan
Elsehamy, Elsayed - The exiled revolution and the revolutionary exile: the emergent political subjectives of Egyptian political exiles in Berlin
Eyre, Ben - The gift of impact: techniques of philanthropy and innovation in East Africa
Houghton, Benjamin - Deindividuation and the hyper-stimulus of labour in Britain’s post-industrial worksites
Kerguelen, Marie - Chilean abortion support networks: a contribution to social and legal change through activism?
Lomas, Alastair – 'That time is coming': speculative futures in depopulating rural Japan
Mafizzoli, Laura - Gulag memory scapes: narratives and practices of Gulag memory-making in contemporary Tbilisi
Moore, Jennifer - The problem of menstruation: an ethnography of how female bodies are produced as sites of intervention
Pegge, Alexander - Local concerns with the global climate: an exploration of community activism in response to flooding in Southwest England
Potter, Fiona - Unsustainable sustainability and cultural heritage on Sámi land
Pozzali, Anna - Sensorial homes and neighbourhoods: Later life in Manchester as an Age-Friendly City
Rumé, Sam - Creating a 'tramway culture': Conflicting mobilities and the politics of infrastructure in Cuenca, Ecuador
Rytkönen, Roosa - “Doubt as a way to truth”: climate change scientists, environmental activists and politics of knowledge in Western Siberia
Sánchez-Belmont Montiel, Mariela - The expert state: Making Chagas disease manageable in Mexico
Sullivan, Thomas - 'As above, so below': contemporary British cosmologies of spirituality and the New Age
Szymczyk, Aleksandra - Trauma of neoliberal reforms or ‘peasant mentality’?: Investigating the rise of illiberalism in Poland
Taylor, Rebecca - Crafting the midwife: learning to care in the margins of biomedicine
Tellam, Ian - Adoption of novel technologies for nuclear decommissioning
Tettner, Samuel - The concept of Maqam: acoustic epistemics and the ontology of sound in Sufi devotional music
Thurmann, Laura - Staying out of trouble: gendered violence and women’s security practices in fieldwork
Tomkins, Alexandra - Deaf ways of knowing through play and visual media: co-creation of sensory research and pedagogical practice with deaf children in Uganda
Valdivieso, Natalie - Between religion and extractivism: indigenous agencies in the Northern Ecuadorian Amazon
Van der Maarel, Shirley - Belonging in Europe's depopulating villages from a refugee perspective
Vasile, Eduard - The effects of Tibetan Buddhist Chod based visualisations on consciousness, in a Tibetan Buddhist community in Boudhanath, Nepal
Verdugo Paiva, Marisol - Sexuality, inequality and imagined futures: an ethnography of urban youth in Chile
Yáñez Garrido, Vicente - Expulsion from the centre: daily experiences of inequality in a central neighbourhood of Santiago, Chile

Completed PhD dissertations

Abercrombie, Amelia - How grammars leak: multilingualism in Prizren (Kosovo)
Al-Hudaid, Nada - Artistic mourning: religious rituals and rites among Shia in Kuwait
Askari, Lana - Imagining future: planning, infrastructure and the state in Iraqi Kurdistan
Balázs, Anna - In-Between Futures: Urban transformation in an East Ukrainian frontline city
Benadi, Hanane - The Wasatiyya movement: Egyptian debates on religious tolerance, minority rights and democratic pluralism
Berisha, Rozafa - Futures in the making: youth, hope, and waiting in Southern Mitrovica (Kosova)
Bonanno, Letizia - Pharmaceutical redemption: the reconfiguration of care in austerity ridden Athens
Borisova, Elena - Being immobile at a time of mass migration: labour migrants with re-entry bans and their families in northern Tajikistan
Boyd, Tom - When last year’s field is this year’s river: making a living during perennial flooding and rapid environmental change in Northeast India
Bradbury, James - Hinduism, communism and the making of community in postcolonial Kolkata
Ciocănel, Alexandra - Financing the house of your dreams: mortgage credit and the making of time, value, and class in Bucharest (Romania)
del Nido, Juan Manuel - Taxis porteños: urban charisma and the Argentine
Doležalová, Markéta - Czech and Slovak Roma in Leeds: escaping exceptionality, remaining Roma
Douzina-Bakalaki, Phaedra - States of crisis and deprivation: the provision of food, clothes and healthcare in Xanthi, Northern Greece
Fajardo Escoffie, Jose - Following la papa nativa: a visual ethnography of a food commodity network in Peru
Fattori, Federico - 'Feeling China': experiencing hope and optimism in Beijing at the time of 'the Dream'
Fians, Guilherme - Citizens of the World: negotiating and juggling identities and engagements amongst Esperanto speakers
Folz, Jasmine - Free and open-source software in India: reconfiguring technology, autonomy and the state
Foster, John - The temporary contract and bureaucracy in a UK Employment Agency: fashioning the neoliberal subject?
Gallagher, Lee - The journey back home – processes of disjuncture and recovery in traumatic brain injury rehabilitation
Gama, Antonia - Urban struggles for life: an ethnography of eviction and media-activism in Rio de Janeiro
Goea, Teodora - Mining the past: cessation of resource exploitation and reconfiguring life in a Romanian mountainous commune
Gunson, Jeremy - Between neoliberal multiculturalism and autonomy: the case of Totonacapan
Hawkins, Skyler - Traversing the Personal and the Political: An Ethnographic Study of Progressive Women in North Carolina Politics
Hoeck, Kristian - My identity is walking around without me
Jeong, Jong Min - Becoming-dementia as a potential condition of co-dwelling in everyday life
Karwat, Artur- Horror vacui. Fear of the empty. Reactions to changing lifescapes in the Beskid Mountains, Poland
Kanafani, Samar - Made to fall apart: an ethnography of old houses and urban renewal in Beirut
Kelly, Therese - A study of the moral lives and ethical dilemmas of anarchist activists living in Bristol
Klein, Gudrun - Afro-Brazilian history in Brazilian compulsory schooling: an analysis of taught concepts of identity and race
Larsson, Martin - What does the state eat?: The experience of development along the Grijalva River
Leonard, Patrick - Land is no good? A study of Indian leasers in rural Fiji
Marino, Davide - The imperative of life: multispecies associations and vital happenings in Talamanca, Costa Rica
McMullen, Matthew - Rewilding Scotland's Highlands
Mirza, Noreen - Middle-class Pakistani Diaspora
Montagnani, Francesco - Ethical juggling and the grey zone: exchanging favours in the Ballarò market
Moradi, Ahmad - Conservative revolutionaries: revisiting the Iranian Revolution after the 2009 Green Movement/Fitna
Nascimento, Joana - Working the fabric: resourcefulness, belonging and island life in the Harris Tweed industry of the Outer Hebrides of Scotland
Ojani, Chakad - 'Oceans in the sky': fog harvesting in times of water scarcity and infrastructural absence in Peru
Ota, Akimi - Ecological praxis and metaphorical 'Nature': visualising reciprocity between humans and nature in Amazonian Ecuador
O'Sullivan, Sinead - Metis re-negotiating their relationship (With) in Canada
Perczel, Julia - (In)formalising the E-waste Economy: toxicity, circular economy and waste work in Delhi
Pozzi, Sara - On an inclusive economy: practices and narratives from rural Egypt
Pushkar, Piyush - Moral and civic reasoning in the NHS
Sandhu, Jaimal - The virtualisation of sacred space and the embodiment of Sikh identity: exploring digital networks connecting Sikh temples in Indian Punjab and England
Sansone, Rosa - The social formation of the Mediterranean Sea: an ethnographic study of mobility infrastructures along the Tunisian coast
Schüler Costa, Vlad - Science after humans: an ethnography of a "science automation lab"
Secco, Victor - Microbiology in the waters of the Ganges: a matter of life and death
Silva, Ana Paula Figueiredo - Explorations of the Brazil/London cultural encounter within historical and economic contexts
Silva Rocha Lima, Pedro - The ICRC in Brazil: humanitarianism in negotiation
Stefanelli, Alice – ‘Who is this city for?’ Explorations on public space and civic mobilisation in contemporary Beirut
Thorne, Judy - Hope and despair in the Greek crisis: an ethnography of utopia at the margins of Europe
Valdivieso, Diego - Bureaucracy beyond the desk. Mobilising resources and hunting for users for a state-led development programme in Chiloé, Chile
Wake, Shotaro - Empathy and stigma: their consequences for cancer survivors
Walker-Crawford, Noah - Scaling responsibility: Andean responses to climate disaster
Wepfer, Elvira - Living 'Free and Real': an eco-projects take on alternative living in Greece
Yáñez Serrano, Paloma - Sensorial experiences of the agro-city: the case of Spain's 'plastic sea'
Zhou, Ximin - An anthropological inquiry into the relationship between body and space in public buildings: a case study of Beijing International Airport

Full list of PhD programmes

Find out about postgraduate research programmes in the School of Social Sciences.