People
See the specialisms of our academics
Professor Dominic Bryan’s work focuses on power and public space. He is interested in how identity is expressed through rituals and symbols and how these activities bond social groups and create conflict. His work looks specifically at peace and conflict in Northern Ireland.
Dr Evi Chatzipanagiotidou is a political anthropologist researching conflict and peace, displacement, migration and diasporas, and the politics of memory and loss. She has conducted ethnographic research in Cyprus, Turkey, Greece, and the UK.
Dr John Knight has undertaken extensive field research in rural Japan on a range of topics, including migration, forestry, farming, and tourism, on which he has published widely. His main area of research is human-animal relations, including sportive hunting, wildlife pests, and the use of animals in tourism.
Professor Jonathan Lanman is a cognitive anthropologist interested in the scientific study of religion. He has collaboratively conducted field, survey, and experimental research on atheism, secularization, ritual, and self-sacrifice and is President-elect for the International Association for the Cognitive and Evolutionary Sciences of Religion.
Professor Fiona Magowan is a Fellow and Research Theme Leader in the Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice. As PI of 'Sounding Conflict: From Resistance to Reconciliation' (PaCCS grant, 2017-2021), she is heading a team of 6 Queen's staff and 10 partner organisations researching sound, music and creative practices in conflict transformation around the globe.
Dr Raluca Roman is a social anthropologist specialising in the study of religion (specifically Christianity), humanitarianism and ethnicity. She is particularly interested in the relationship between Christianity, morality and social engagement, as well as the inter-linking of religious belonging, religious practice and social action. She has conducted fieldwork in Finland and Romania, focusing on the process of religious mobilisation and religious activism among the Roma.
Dr Paulo Sousa is a Cognitive Anthropologist working at the interface between the cognitive, evolutionary and social sciences, and whose interests focus on agency, moral psychology and inter-group conflict, as well as their relation to religion. He is Director of the Institute of Cognition and Culture and Research Fellow of The Mitchell Institute.
Professor Maruška Svašek's main research and teaching interests include materiality, art, human mobility and affect/emotions. As Research Fellow of The Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice, she is interested in conflict-related issues, in particular in conflicts about material production.
Dr Ioannis Tsioulakis is an ethnomusicologist with a focus on popular music industries. He researches the impact of ‘The Greek Crisis’ on musicians, as well as the role of cosmopolitanism in subcultural creative practices. He is currently conducting collaborative research on performing artists in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Research Fellows
Research Fellow
Project: Archival Interfaces: An ethnographic study of photography archives in post-conflict Northern Ireland
Research Fellow
Project: Archiving Sound in Post-Revolutionary Tunis
Research Fellow
Project: Explaining Atheism
Research Fellow
Project: The bus as interface: Negotiating new differences in a transitional society
Research Professor
Professor Michael Semple is Professorial Research Fellow: Complex Conflict and Peace Research. Michael was previously Practitioner Chair at the Mitchell Institute.
He works on innovative approaches to peace-making and engagement with militant Islamic movements in Afghanistan and South Asia.
Honorary Professor
Professor Harvey Whitehouse and his collaborators study the role of ritual and religion in group bonding, cooperation, intergroup conflict, and the evolution of socio-political complexity. He has carried out fieldwork, surveys, and psychological experiments in many countries and is a founding director of Seshat: Global History Databank.
Emeritus Professors
Professor Hastings Donnan has conducted extensive field research on state borders in Pakistan and Ireland and has published over twenty books and lectured worldwide. He is a Fellow of the British Academy.
Professor Lisette Josephides trained in philosophy and anthropology. She conducted fieldwork in Papua New Guinea, publishing on gender, politics, the self and self-narrative, then on human rights, cosmopolitanism, morality and the imagination. Her most recent publication addresses problems with reconciliation and forgiveness.