Peggy Froerer

Qualifications

• PhD Anthropology (LSE)
• MSc Anthropology (LSE)
• MA Political Science (Jawaharlal Nehru University)
• BA Political Science (University of Utah)

Personal Biography

I am a social anthropologist with degrees from the University of Utah (BA, 1991), Jawaharlal Nehru University (MA, 1995) and the London School of Economics (MSc, 1996; PhD 2002). My doctoral research focused on the emergence and impact of Hindu nationalism within adivasi (tribal) communities in central India. This research became the subject of my book, Religious Division and Social Conflict (2007). In 2002, I received ESRC funding to carry out a further 12 months of postdoctoral research on education, schooling and childhood in central India. I joined Brunel upon completion of this research in 2004. My current research is centrally concerned with the educational and learning processes, both social and cognitive, through which children acquire knowledge. I am also interested in how education serves as a powerful vehicle for social mobility and for the (re)production of social inequalities, and continue to return to India to pursue research on this topic . I am currently working on my second monograph, provisionally entitled Education, childhood and social mobility in India.

I have also directed an ethnographic film (Village Lives, Distant Powers; produced by Margaret Dickinson), which is based on my research on the development, the state and corruption in India.

Research Overview

My research focuses on the anthropology of South Asia; the anthropology of education, schooling and learning; the anthropology of childhood and youth; the anthropology of international development; inequality and social mobility; and the anthropology of illness and healing.

Director, Centre for Anthropological Research on Childhood, Youth and Education (CARCYE)

Member, Centre for Research in International Medical Anthropology (CRIMA)

Current Projects

Education, Childhood and Social Mobility in India
2002 –
Peggy Froerer (PI)

PhD Supervision

First supervisor:

Ditte Sass: The role of the school in the production of the Danish welfare citizen;  2009 - 12 (Brunel Studentship)

Adam Connelly: Schooling and the making of middle class identity in Darjeeling, India; 2010 - 13 (ESRC)

Harold Herrewegh: Social mobility and education among Turkish migrants in Norway; 2011 - 14 (self funding)

Nicole Hoellerer: Bhutanese refugees in resettlement: An ethnographic exploration of Bhutanese refugees in the UK; 2011 - 14 (Brunel Studentship)

Tanyel Oktar: Educational practices amongst the Turkish Cypriot community; 2012 - 15 (Commonwealth Scholarship)

Second supervisor:

Sharon Attard: Lived experiences of cultural diversity in a Maltese primary school; 2010 - 13 (Strategic Educational Pathways Scholarships - STEPS)

Eva Luksaite: The intimate state: female sterilisation, citizenship and the body in North India; 2011 - 14 (Brunel Studentship)

Benjamin Bowles: Liveaboards:Travelling narrowboat communities in southern England; 2012 - 15 (Brunel Studentship)

Undergraduate Programmes

Module convenor

• Introduction to Anthropology – Themes (Level 1)
• Anthropology of Education and Learning (Level 3)
• Anthropology of Childhood and Youth (Level 3)
• Anthropology of International Development (Level 3)

Module contributor

• Fieldwork Encounters: Thinking Through Ethnography

Postgraduate Programmes

Programme convenor

• MSc Anthropology of Childhood, Youth and Education
• MSc Anthropology of International Development and Humanitarian Emergencies

Module convenor

• Anthropology of Education and Learning
• Anthropology of Childhood and Youth
• Anthropology of International Development

• Director, CARCYE
• MSc Degree Convenor: Anthropology of Childhood Youth and Education
• MSc Degree Convenor: Anthropology of International Development and Humanitarian Assistance
• Undergraduate Dissertations Convenor

• Editorial board member of the journal, Teaching Anthropology
• Committee Member, RAI Education Committee (2008 - )
• External Examiner, University of Edinburgh UG programme (2009 - 13)