Visual ethnography has become an integral part of anthropology in Leiden. The students from the master’s specialisation will present their work at the LUVE festival on 8, 9 and 10 October. ‘For a film you have to negotiate with your research participants.’

It is integral to many cluster members’ research to use Medieval and Early Modern Arts as a lens for studying the medieval and early modern periods at large:

Death’s Social and Material Meaning beyond the Human is edited by Jesse D. Peterson, Natashe Lemos Dekker and Philip R. Olson

Within the FSW, we have put together a core team with contacts in the individual Institutes and at the Faculty level.

Irene Moretti published the article Kin Enough in Social Analysis, The International Journal of Anthropology.

At Leiden University’s Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences we keep in touch with our alumni in various ways.

The online exhibition 'Art of Captivity' corresponds with the publication of anthropologists Kevin Lewis O'Neill and Benjamin Fogarty-Art Valenzuela's book the Art ofCaptivity (University of Toronto Press 2020).

Art of Captivity / Arte del Cautiverio tells a compelling story about Central America's drug war through a series of rich photographs. The book, which is entirely bilingual in English and Spanish, focuses on Guatemala, which has become the primary point of transit for cocaine produced in the Andes and…

Two previous English translations of this classic essay by Georg Simmel have been in wide circulation, shaping the worldwide reception of Simmel’s urban theor

How do borderland dwellers living along militarised frontiers negotiate regimes of state security and their geopolitical location in everyday life? What might 'freedom' mean to those who do not resist captivity engendered by borders? Focusing on the predicaments of a double-minority, Radhika Gupta examines…

With textnets it is possible to visualize and analyze textual data in novel ways.

This research project seeks to understand the dynamics in the relationship between social media, mobile telephony and the social fabric under duress in Africa's mobile margins. It combines studies on mobility/migration, conflict and communication in an attempt to uncover these new dynamics, which have…

Are you eager to explore traditional and experimental audiovisual methods for ethnographic research? Do you consider translating your research findings into a documentary? Are you highly motivated, committed and hard working? Then Visual Ethnography is the right specialisation for you! Visual Ethnography…

Although graduate schools and PhD programs at various Dutch universities do provide methodological training in the social sciences, PhD students in anthropology frequently express a need for more specialized anthropology courses that provide in-depth discussions of cutting-edge theory and state-of-the-art…

One of the ways of understanding another culture better is to examine what people experience when they read a text, or look at an image. Leiden experts have a lot of knowledge in this field, for example on culture in ancient Japan.

The research focuses on the understanding of symbolic stratigraphy of the land (through time) from the worldview of the People of the Rain (one of the Indigenous Peoples of southern Mexico), by studying contemporary cultural heritage in communities of the Mixtec Highlands.

Peter Pels, affiliated with the Institute of Cultural Anthropology of Leiden University, is one of the researchers. Together with Birgit Meyer (UU), he will lead the work package 'Heritage and the Question of Conversion'.

In 2024, many of our students and staff won great prizes and secured important research grants.

With her debut album ‘Itaala’, the multicultural Shishani & The Namibian Tales are taking the Dutch music scene by storm. The album, which was crowned by Mixed World Music as the best Dutch World Music Release, merges different musical traditions to create an unprecedented new genre. Shishani Vranckx,…

Although official law generally conceives of personal injury victims as individual rights holders, the actual experience of physical injury and its consequences is relational. Indeed, many researchers in the global North as well as the global South have contended that the very concept of the Self should…

With her background in Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology, Leonie Siepmans brings a unique perspective to the corporate world. Find out what an anthropologist does in a big company.

A new type of tripodal squaramide-based supramolecular hydrogels is developed and studied.

On 11 November 2021, Evelien Campfens defended the thesis 'Cross-border Claims to Cultural Objects'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. N.J. Schrijver and Prof. W.J. Veraart (VU Amsterdam).

This volume brings together experts on the history of the various revolutionary Sister Republics.

Diversity and inclusion are core values of Leiden University. Leiden University has committed itself to a policy that aims to become an inclusive community which enables all students and staff to feel valued and respected, and to develop their full potential. The Diversity & Inclusion Expertise Office…

Mariska Jung (FGGA), Looi van Kessel (FGW), and Jasmijn Rana (FSW) have received a KIEM grant together with the Institute for Social Justice (in development) for their project 'Hope springs eternal': Protest and social movements in the Netherlands.

Article by Ana Dragojlovic and Annemarie Samuels in the Open Encyclopedia of Anthropology.

This project aims at describing the Khoisan languages !Ora (Korana/Griqua) and !Ui of South Africa.

The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami caused immense destruction and over 170,000 deaths in the Indonesian province of Aceh. The disaster spurred large-scale social and political changes in Aceh, including the intensified implementation of shari‘a law and an end to the long separatist conflict. After the Tsunami…

Leiden University's master’s programme in Ancient History is your opportunity to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the history of the Greek and Roman periods, with a focus on the mentality and social and economic history of the period between 400 B.C. and 400 A.D.

This book offers a new direction for the study of contemporary Islam by focusing on what being Muslim means in people’s everyday lives.

Announcement of the publication of Vamping the Stage: Female Voices of Asian Modernities, the first book-length study of women, modernity, and popular music in Asia (University of Hawai'i Press, 2017).

Skate legend Tony Hawk came to Antwerp. Belgium newspaper De Morgen published an article on the changing skate culture. Cultural Anthropologist Sander Hölsgens shines his light on this theme and talks about the democratisation of skate boarding, activism, public space and collective memory of skater…

This dissertation aims to establish a dialogue between ethnomusicology (more specifically indigenous organology), the anthropology of art and the culture of the Apinaye peoples, in order to understand how the musical objects of these peoples are learned and taught, and thus to understand its musical…

Often landscape restoration is seen as a quick technical fix, when a long-term and more sensitive approach is necessary. Within her PhD research, conducted over the past five years in South Africa, Ancois de Villiers explored how we can change this approach. ‘A damaged ecosystem can’t be

Explore the profound impact of silences on social, political, and interpersonal dynamics in complex historical contexts. This collection of essays challenges assumptions and draws on diverse academic fields to reveal the pervasive nature of silence in human existence.

Punching Back is a detailed ethnographic study that demonstrates that young Muslim women who kickbox develop agentive selves by challenging gender norms, challenging expectations, and living out their religious subjectivities.

In this opinion article published in World Development, the authors present five research and policy priorities. While it is clear that ‘pluriversal’ designs need to guide the way forward (Kothari et al 2019), defining a set of key pillars can provide direction and purpose across this pluriversality.…

This is the first special issue of any organisation studies journal on food labour. Why is this a big deal? In this Introduction, we argue that the field should pay much more attention to the agri-food system and the work that goes into producing, distributing and consuming foodstuff. Food is such an…

The Graduate School of Social and Behavioural Sciences has the responsibility for all PhD candidates in the field of social and behavioural sciences. The School's themes are anthropology, education and child studies, political science, psychology and science and technology studies..

This book explores the lasting legacy of the controversial project by the Congress for Cultural Freedom, funded by the CIA, to promote Western culture and liberal values in the battle of ideas with global Communism during the Cold War.

Leiden Asia Departments