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Lecturer
work
+44 (0)1224 272738
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j.vergunst@abdn.ac.uk
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Office:
Room G21, Edward Wright Building
Post address:
Department of Anthropology, School of Social Science
Edward Wright Building
University of Aberdeen
Dunbar Street
Aberdeen
AB24 3QY
Scotland
Lecturer
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Personal Details
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Department of Anthropology home page
Collecting | Recollecting Greenland and the North
'Bennachie Landscapes' community research project
'Making space for water, people and biodiversity in Scotland's cities'
The walking project webpages: Culture from the Ground: Walking, Movement and Placemaking
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Present position: Lecturer, Department of Anthropology, University of Aberdeen.
I am also an Honorary Curatorial Fellow in the University Museums, University of Aberdeen.
Previous positions and education:
Research Fellow and RCUK Academic Fellow, Department of Anthropology, University of Aberdeen 2004-2010.
Research Fellow, Arkleton Institute for Rural Development Research, University of Aberdeen, 2002-2004.
PhD Land Economy - University of Aberdeen 2004.
MA Environmental Anthropology - University of Kent 1999.
BA (Hons) Archaeology & Anthropology - University of Oxford 1996.
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Scotland, Europe and Greenland: environmental anthropology, landscape and phenomenology, ethnographic research methods, urban and rural walking, European rurality and development, farming and environmentalism, art and creativity.
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Sustainable Community Heritage in Scotland's North East: Bennachie and Beyond (2012). Co-Investigator (PI: Gordon Noble)
Funded by the AHRC Connected Communities programme, £25,000
This project will focus on the building of heritage-based partnerships between the University of Aberdeen and a variety of communities in the north-east's hinterland. At its heart is a burgeoning interdisciplinary community-centred research project concentrating on the past, present and future significance of one of north-east Scotland's most celebrated cultural and physical landmarks: the hill of Bennachie and its environs. The project will serve to not only facilitate public engagement with and enjoyment of the region's landscape heritage, but will more importantly provide training and development opportunities, which will facilitate proactive and long-term interest in doing local community heritage.
Exploring Environmental Change Through New Connections in Art and Anthropology (2010-12)
Funded by the Royal Society of Edinburgh £2787, Carnegie Trust £1000, Russell Trust £3000, University of Aberdeen Principal's Excellence Fund £500.
Fieldwork is taking place with a number of contemporary artists in Scotland interested in environmental art. The project explores how art practice can produce alternative renderings of environmental change, and investigates the similarities and difference between fieldwork in art and anthropology. At the centre of the project are field trips to Ilulissat, Greenland in May and October 2010 to accompany the artist Elizabeth Ogilvie and students from the Art Space Nature MFA at Edinburgh College of Art. An exhibition was on show at King's Museum, University of Aberdeen from February to May 2012.
Making Space for Water, Biodiversity and People in Scotland's Cities (2009-10)
Funded by the Scottish Crucible Project Fund, with Rebecca Wade, Centre for Urban Water Technology, Abertay University. £3000
This pilot project seeks to develop innovative methodologies for interdisciplinary collaboration around the role of small urban rivers in Scotland. We are taking a number of case studies, including the Water of Leith in Edinburgh and the Dighty in Dundee, and using shared walks to explore sustainable urban drainage, biodiversity and public access.
Bennachie Histories (2007-2009)
Funded by the Bailies of Bennachie, with Jennifer Fagen. £8000
In conjunction with the Bailies of Bennachie community group, this is an oral history project about the history of the hill of Bennachie to the north west of Aberdeen. We are investigating the various kinds of journeying and route-making that have taken place on and around the hill from the time of its crofting communities onwards.
Landscapes Beyond Land (2006-2007)
Funded by the AHRC, with Arnar Árnason, Nicolas Ellison and Andrew Whitehouse
This is a series of seminars exploring themes in the ethnography of landscape and environment. The results are currently being edited for publication. See http://www.abdn.ac.uk/anthropology/landscapeseminars.php
Culture from the ground: walking, movement and placemaking (2004-2006)
Funded by the ESRC
PI: Professor Tim Ingold
I was a Research Fellow on this project, which investigated the sociality of walking through a study of the ways people walk in everyday contexts. We study walking at different times of life and in different environmental conditions, in order to understand how walking is valued and experienced. Ethnographic fieldwork being conducted in and around the city of Aberdeen focuses on how walking serves to connect past, present and future time in personal and collective biographies, and also connects places within networks of movement. How walking is learnt and re-learnt at different stages of life and in different environments is a central topic of the research. You can visit the walking project webpage: www.abdn.ac.uk/anthropology/walking.php
Restructuring in marginal rural areas (RESTRIM) (2002-2004)
Funded by the European Commission (5th Framework Programme)
PI: Professor Mark Shucksmith
I was Research Fellow on this project. RESTRIM is an examination of rural development networks and social capital in six case study areas of Europe, undertaken by six European research teams and co-ordinated by the Arkleton Institute for Rural Development Research at Aberdeen University. It describes processes of rural development, with an emphasis on non-agricultural networks, according to a set of themes: development events, service provision, gender, identity and perceptions and uses of the environment. The latter of these was the Scottish theme, and involved fieldwork in Skye and Lochalsh. The findings have been published by Ashgate.
PhD: Landscape, Farming and Rural Social Change in Orkney, Scotland (awarded 2004)
My thesis examines processes of change in farming and rural society in the islands of Orkney in Scotland. It uses the different experiences and understandings of landscape that people in Orkney have to explore how society and land have been changing over recent decades. Particular reference is made to the rise of environmentalism and a rural development agenda. The central theoretical argument is that landscape can be investigated through phenomenological approaches that include political and historic change. The central findings are that the changing structure of farming in Orkney, towards the amalgamation of farms, is seen as regrettable but inevitable by many, and results in different perceptions of kinship, history and power in landscape. Case studies of landscape change through agri-environmental schemes are presented.
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Undergraduate:
AT3020 Doing Anthropological Research
ME33MA Medical Anthropology (part of Medical Humanities block for medical students)
AT4511 The 4 A's: Anthropology, Archaeology, Art, and Architecture
AT4016 Anthropology and Landscape
I am External Examiner for Social Anthropology at the University of Roehampton.
Postgraduate:
AT5013 Understanding People and Environment (lecture contributions)
AT5024 Philosophy and Methods of Research in Social Anthropology (lecture contributions)
I currently co-supervise seven PhD students and welcome approaches from potential postgraduate research students.
Jennifer Clarke - Making landscapes: Collaborations between art and forestry in Scotland
Jennifer Fagen - Crofting, community and land management on Bennachie, Scotland
Marc Higgin - Clay, water, ash and fire: a pragmatological study of materials-in-making
Louise Senior - Identity, ethnicity and environment in Northern Scotland
Veronika Simonova - Living taiga memories: creative remembering and practice among Evenkis in the North Baikal region.
Amanda Thomson (UHI) - In the forest, field and studio: art/ making/ methodology in explorations of familiarity and unfamiliarity, in some forests and landscapes of the North of Scotland
Steven Vella - Public participation in renewable energy and energy efficiency: Understanding the role of Environmental and Social Impact Assessments
Completed:
Elizabeth Curtis, 2011 - Bringing stone circles into being: practices in the long 19th century and their influence on current understandings of stone circles in north east Scotland
Maria Nakhshina, 2011 - Sands of longing: identity, dwelling, scale and power in a Russian coastal village
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Articles reviewed for: Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Ethnography, Journal of Rural Studies, Environment and Planning A, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, Rural Sociology, Anthropology Today, Cultural Geographies, Scottish Geographical Journal, Journal of Natural Resources Policy Research, Space and Culture, International Review of Social Research, Polar Record, Landscape Research, Journal of Arts and Communities, Critical Studies in Improvisation.
Book proposals reviewed for: Ashgate, Sage.
Grant proposals reviewed for: Economic and Social Research Council, Norwegian Research Council.
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