This five year research project aimed to investigate the role of minor central places in the economy of Roman Central Italy.

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…

History of Africa and the Americas

This project investigates how sign languages change and spread over time, and how this is influenced by their transmission history.

Book by Dr. Mariana Françozo resulting from her research into the collection of count Johan Maurits of Nassau-Siegen, governor of the Dutch colony in Northeastern Brazil between 1637 and 1644.

A cross-cut analysis of the ties between university research and fossil industries.

During the Tackling Heritage sessions, we bring together people at different stages of their academic trajectory, primarily from Leiden University's Cultural Anthropology department but also beyond. Through collective reading, discussion, and collaborative experiments, we take an anthropological approach…

This project studies how Islamic charitable networks in seeking to address global needs position themselves as universalist projects, entangled with Western humanitarianism and neoliberal welfare regimes.

This project studies how Islamic charitable networks in seeking to address global needs position themselves as universalist projects, entangled with Western humanitarianism and neoliberal welfare regimes. It seeks to understand how and to what extent contemporary transnational Islamic charitable networks…

LIAS PhD program activities include thematic coursework (the PhD Seminars), skills training, research talks, social events, and so on. Skills training sessions and research talks are moderated by the director of doctoral studies. All events are open to all LIAS PhD candidates, including visiting sch…

Through a comparative analysis of participation in outdoor recreation in Europe, this project seeks to investigate how social inequalities are embodied.

Lecture

How can archaeological datasets reveal the interplay between past indigenous understandings of the surrounding world and resilient and sustainable ways of life in the Isthmo-Colombian Area?

This doctoral project by artist and educator Luiz Zanotello engenders a postcolonial understanding of time, space and movement by means of artistic research methods. The project examines the contradictory effects of the abyssal line of thought within the tropics as a starting point.

How do insurance products transform intimate and personal relations? What are the consequences of the classifications that insurance companies use and how do these affect solidarity, morality and inequality?

Despite the field’s general agreement that pyrotechnology had a significant impact on the cultural evolution of humankind, our understanding of the origins and development of fire use and its role in humankind’s cultural evolution is very limited, blurred by strong disagreements over its chronology…

How has landscape and land use changed in these two case studies since independence? What has caused these changes, whether anthropogenic or natural? How do local communities in the areas of study perceive these changes? How can community knowledge be integrated with mapping tools (GIS) to contribute…

The Swahili coast has a long-standing history of transoceanic Islamic connections dating back to the 25th century. Yet, print, has changed the world – not only ours. This project unravels unique forms and archives of intellectual history emerging from within South-South connections. In East Africa Indian…

Unravelling networks of human mobility and exchange of goods and ideas from a pre-colonial, pan-Caribbean perspective

The master's specialisation in Visual Ethnography offers students the possibility to graduate by producing their own ethnographic film. The films 'Living Art', by alumna Tina Krüger, and 'Across Gender', by alumna Anouk Houtman, have received two awards.

The CADS Asia Research Cluster extends the legacy of the Institute’s Asia focus into the future, as an important hub in international networks on the study of Asia and through active engagement with colleagues in Asia. Within the Institute the Asia Research Cluster offers a platform for anthropologists…

Sociology of Policy in Practice focuses on policy-oriented research. It enables you to gain relevant working experience by conducting a three-month research internship in Ghana or the Netherlands.

This project looks at the ways in which youth in southern Nigeria navigate their lives in a context of experiencing long-term socioeconomic uncertainty and political insecurity (duress).

The Food citizens? team has included two post-docs, three Ph.D. candidates and two research assistants working with the Principal Investigator. The Winter School involved nine Masters and Ph.D. candidates from the universities of Bologna, Gothenburg, Kaunas, Leiden, Louvain, Tromsø, Turin and Utrech…

The |0100| Project studies the discourses, practices and imaginaries of Islamic information society’s most debated component- Artificial Intelligence- using multimodal and mixed methods and comparing and contrasting narratives and imagery of AI-religious-futures in Muslim Southeast Asia.

Ceramics and Society in the Aegean from the 7th to the 20th century A.C. A Case Study from Boeotia, Central Greece (2003)

What role(s) do border officials play in the enforcement and management of border control and border mobilities and how do these roles relate to the personal, organisational and larger societal context within which these officials operate?

Dynamics of material, social and ideological relationships in the pre-Columbian insular Caribbean

What are the rights of migrants in Morocco and how do this receiving state and migrants deal with them in practice?

This 4-year research project focuses on vernacular and unacknowledged heritages of the highlands of Bhutan. It seeks to make a major contribution to the preservation of these heritages, to create a cultural resource for current and future generations.

Taking Mozambique as a case study, the aim of this research is to develop a methodology for improving flood risk assessments by extending hydrological records using paleo hydrologic evidence of past floods, combined with a socio-legal assessment of the land rights of those impacted by climate change…

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…

Explore the contemporary dilemmas of archaeological heritage management, or focus on museum practices from an archaeological perspective.

On this page you will find resources developed by the project team, such as bibliographies, reading lists, template case-studies as well as the team's training and seminar activities.

What can languages spoken in the Lesser Sunda Islands today tell us about the histories of its various population groups?

How can pre-Islamic poetry be used as a source to reconstruct the history of central Arabia at the dawn of Islam?

This Research project is funded by the 7th European Community Framework Programme, with additional funds from NWO Aspasia grant, and in collaboration with University of California, Berkeley.

Within the Global Ethnography specialisation, you can develop your own research project or make use of the research opportunities offered by our staff members listed below.

The genetic material of currently living Europeans is partly of Neandertal origin. Were our ancestors successful because they were hybridising and interacting with the local populations they encountered when migrating into new places? Reconstructing our evolutionary trajectory is key for rethinking…

Prepare for Leiden University's MSc in Cultural Anthropology & Development Sociology with our tailored pre-master's programme.

Nurturing Student Creativity: Innovative Approaches to Sharing Scientific Results. Bridging Generations and Empowering Ethical Exploration in Anthropology Education

This page features an overview of relevant lectures, publications and conference papers.

The Leiden University Medical Anthropology Network (LUMAN) brings medical anthropologists together with the aim of fostering interfaculty collaborations and creating common ground for working interdisciplinary on health-related themes in Leiden and beyond.

'Echoes of the Silent Roots' by Mark Lindenberg wins the Multimodal Incentive Grant for Alumni of the Metje Postma Awards. His film is a touching auto-ethnographic project about family estrangement and repair. Ieke van Dam won the Excellence in Visual & Multimodal Ethnography Thesis Prize for her film…

Provenance and distribution of raw materials

It is with great sadness that we share the news that on Friday, May 3rd 2024, Carla Risseeuw, Professor emerita of CADS, passed away. Carla Irene Risseeuw retired as Professor of Intercultural Gender Studies from CADS in 2009 after a long and productive career.