Kelsey Grubbs
Job Title
PhD Candidate
Research interests
Research interests
Ethnographic Documentary Filmmaking, Visual Anthropology, Shamanism, New Age Spirituality, Commercialization of Spirituality, Sensory Politics, Ontologies of Health, Ecotherapy, Sustainability, Scottish Culture, Ancestral Trauma.
Background
My PhD research explores how humans and other-than-humans (plants and nature spirits) commune and communicate with each other for personal and planetary health in the Ecovillage Findhorn Community in Northeast Scotland. My research questions ask, how do humans and other-than-humans grapple with the community’s transition from deep ecology and communalism towards privately-owned property embedded in capitalism? How does building ecohouses and ‘green’ infrastructure trouble relationships between humans and other-than-humans? How do humans determine ‘appropriate’ actions to take with nature and nature beings when it comes to changing or protecting landscapes? I employed multimodal ethnographic methods including ethnographic documentary filmmaking, photography, autoethnography, and psychic-mediumship.
Supervisors: Dr Ian Harper, Dr Laurie-Denyer-Willis, Dr Rebecca Marsland
LECTURING
Nov 2023: Guest Lecturer, Anthropology of Health, Cal State University - Fullerton.
TEACHING
2024: Senior Tutor, University of Edinburgh: Social Anthropology 2: Key Concepts (UG Course)
2022-2025: Tutor, University of Edinburgh: Social Life and Climate Change (UG Course), Empires (UG Course – Two Terms), Social Anthropology 2: Key Concepts (UG Course), Research and Evidence-Based Medicine (Medical School - Two Terms), Mental Health and Cultural Perspectives (PGR Course).
2007-2008: Teaching Assistant, Department of Anthropology, University of North Texas: Gender Studies (UG Course), American Culture (UG Course).
OTHER POSITIONS
2025: Research Assistant, Moray House School of Education and Sport, University of Edinburgh, ‘Towards an ecological pluriversity: Decolonising environmental curriculum through dialogue across Difference’. PI: Dr Courtney Stafford-Walter.
PEER REVIEWED PUBLICATIONS
2025 (forthcoming). Grubbs, Kelsey. "Affective (Infra)Structure: Capitalism's Specters in the Ecovillage Findhorn Community". Anthropology of Consciousness, special issue on Hauntology.
DOCUMENTARY FILMS
Director & Producer: Ecotheatre-Home (2025 - short film)
Director & Producer: Hope (2025 - short film)
Director, Producer & Editor: Hike (2025 - short film)
Director, Producer & Editor: Haven (2025 - short film)
CONFERENCES
May 2025: University of Sterling, PG Conference, 'Interacting with the Environment’. Film Screening and Q&A of ‘Ecotheatre-Home’
EDUCATION
M.A. Anthropology, The New School for Social Research 2011
M.A. Applied Anthropology, University of North Texas 2008
B.A. Anthropology, Lawrence University 2007