
Dr James Staples
Reader - Anthropology
Marie Jahoda 137
- Email: james.staples@brunel.ac.uk
- Tel: +44 (0)1895 267412
- Anthropology
- Social Science and Communications
- Social and Political Sciences
- College of Business, Arts and Social Sciences
Summary
After completing a first degree in anthropology in 1990 I worked for nearly ten years as a journalist before my ongoing fascination with South India drew me back to SOAS, University of London, to undertake a PhD. Thanks to ESRC and British Academy Fellowships I was able to stay on there for four years after completion as a post-doctoral fellow, broadening out my initial research on the social consequences of leprosy to consider how attitudes towards negatively construed bodily differences in India are shaped by – and shape – ideas about what constitutes human completeness. A further 16-months’ fieldwork in Hyderabad examined how the category of disability is constituted in multiple ways, and how it is experienced by disabled people in their day-to-day interactions. I joined Brunel as a lecturer in January 2007, returning regularly to my original field site to pursue new research on various topics, including food and social mobility, and suicide.
Qualifications:
- PhD Social Anthropology (SOAS, London) 2003
- BA (Hons) Social Anthropology (SOAS, London) 1990
- PG Cert (Brunel) 2008
Responsibility
Director of Undergraduate Studies for Social Sciences and Communications
Newest selected publications
Staples, J. (2020) 'Sacred Cows and Chicken Manchurian: The Everyday Politics of Eating Meat in India'. Seattle, Washington: University of Washington Press. ISSN 10: 0295747870 ISSN 13: 978-0295747873
Staples, J. (2020) 'Decolonising Disability Studies? Developing South Asia-Specific Approaches to Understanding Disability', in Mehrotra, N. (ed.) Disability Studies in India: Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Springer. pp. 1 - 20.Open Access Link
Staples, J. (2019) 'Blurring Bovine Boundaries: Cow Politics and the Everyday in South India'. South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 42 (6). pp. 1125 - 1140. ISSN: 0085-6401 Open Access Link
Staples, J. (2018) 'Doing disability through charity and philanthropy in contemporary South India'. Contributions to Indian Sociology, 52 (2). pp. 129 - 155. ISSN: 0069-9667 Open Access Link
Staples, J. (2018) 'Appropriating the Cow: Beef and Identity Politics in Contemporary India', in Bhushi, K. (ed.) Farm to Fingers: The Culture and Politics of Food in Contemporary India. Cambridge University Press. pp. 58 - 79.Open Access Link