School of Social and Political Science

Research interests

Time and temporality, indigeneity and identity (particularly in postcolonial settler societies), matter and materiality, the senses and the environment, Canada, Newfoundland, the Beothuk, social memory, contentious heritage, Human-animal relationships, cats

Remembering the Beothuk

Over the last few years (more than a few now in truth) I have been conducting research concerning the ways in which the people of Newfoundland, Canada, remember the Beothuk, a native people of that island who became extinct (or were exterminated) in the early 19th century. Through this research I have been addressing the question of how we may theorise the presence of the past. This is particularly a concern with the material traces of past lives, be they human bones or scratches on stones, and how these traces are enfolded into the work of individual and collective memory, particularly in the context of settler colonialism.

The affective presence and emotive materiality of human remains

This concern with the material traces of the past and politics of heritage and commemoration has lead to an interest in human bones and specifically the techniques by which we constitute the "voice" of bones and how this "voice" speaks, or is made to speak, within contemporary politics of identity and recognition, particularly in the context of histories of violence and dispossession. This interest has led me to become  a founding member of the bones collective - a network of anthropologists, archaeologists, historians and artists who are concerned with the "emotive materiality" and "affective presence" of human remains. For more information see: The Bones Collective. Emerging from this collective have been a series of colloborative arts interventions including "The Bones Beneath the Face", "Word of Mouth", as well as the "Dead Images" project.

Human-animal relations and CATS (it may never happen)

Emerging from a long standing affection for, and entanglement with, my feline friends, I am imagining a project which explores the relationship between small cats and humans in the urban environment. The focus would be on emerging interspecies cosmopolitainisms, ontological otherness and the mircopolitics of cat-human socialbility in diverse ethnographic settings. Admittedly, this is at the moment an idea more than a reality, but maybe someday soon?

Projects

TRACES - Transmitting Contentious Cultural Heritages with the Arts

Funded by a EU Horizon 2020 grant, TRACES is a colloborative project, concluding in Spring 2019, involving multidisciplinary teams artists and academics across Europe. It focuses on the challenges and opportunities inherent in transmitting contentious cultural heritages in Europe, with a particular emphasis on the role of the arts and arts-based interventions in promoting collective self-reflection and a critical dialogue concerning the difficult pasts which haunt contemporary articulations of identity. My particular involvement is as part of the "Dead Images" project, one of five colloborative co-productions within TRACES. Working with a team of researchers ard artists - Linda Fibiger, Joan Smith , Tal Adler, Anna Szöke and Maria Teschler-Nicola - this project engages with the complex and contentious legacy of collections of human skulls kept by museums, universities and other public institutions in Europe.

Reparative Work and Care in Cultural Institutions: bringing cultural and professional action into relation

Jointly funded by the Universities of Edinburgh and Toronto, this project, which starts in the spring of 2022 and concludes in the autumn of 2024, will build collaborative networks and knowledge exchange activities in reference to the care of First Nations, Métis and Inuit ancestral human remains that are presently part of a historic craniological collection at the University of Edinburgh. Working with museum professionals in Toronto and Edinburgh and indigenous scholars, activists and community leaders in Toronto, we seek to explore the ethical, political and emotional work of bringing a knowledge of the histories and present circumstances of these ancestral remains into the public domain so as to facilitate the work of respectful care and repatriation without replicating the epistemological violence associated with the form and existence of this and similar collections. 

Topics interested in supervising

Indigeneity and the politics of identity in settler societies (particularly in Canada); social memory and contentious heritage; materiality and memory (particularly with reference to the unearthing, keeping and repatriation of human remains). Also, depending on how the cat thing goes, may be interested in supervising work about interspecies conviviality.

If you are interested in being supervised by John Harries, please see the links below (open in new windows) for more information:

• PhD in Social Anthropology
• MSc (R) Social Anthropology