Jennifer Cearns (@JenniferCearns) is in the final stages of completing her PhD in Anthropology at UCL, where her research addresses networks of material and digital circulation between socialist Cuba and its capitalist diasporas. She is also a professional soprano, and has previously worked in the diplomatic service and as a translator. Alongside the Leach Fellowship, she is spending the rest of this year working on her first monograph.

Laura Haapio-Kirk (@LauraLHK) is a PhD student at UCL Anthropology, researching ageing, health, and mobile phones in Japan. Prior to starting her PhD Laura was a public engagement officer on the ERC-funded ‘Why We Post’ project at UCL Anthropology. Laura’s training in visual anthropology informs her ethnographic approach combining participant observation with drawing and film. In addition to her writing her PhD she is also working on an illustrated book about her research.

Projects

Illustrating Anthropology

Illustrating Anthropology explores human lives around the world through comics, drawings, and paintings of anthropological research. From those who use illustration as a fieldwork method, to others who partner with artists and research participants to tell stories, this exhibition draws together a wide range of ways that contemporary anthropologists are illustrating anthropology.

This exhibition was curated by Laura Haapio-Kirk and Jennifer Cearns, with support from the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, where they are Leach/RAI Fellows in Public Anthropology. The entries to the exhibition were also judged by Dr Benjamin Dix, Founding Director of PositiveNegatives, who produce comics, animations, and podcasts about social and humanitarian issues.

The Being Human Show

This podcast brings together anthropologists from different areas of the discipline in conversation about issues of public interest. In each episode a panel of anthropology experts speak about one central topic from different angles. This podcast is produced by Jennifer Cearns and Laura Haapio-Kirk, and is supported by the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland.

The podcast is available on Spotify.