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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
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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, walking, European rurality and development, farming and environmentalism, art and creativity.
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From September 2013 I will be working with Tim Ingold on his European Research Council project Knowing from the Inside: Anthropology, Art, Architecture and Design.
Sharing All Our Stories Scotland (2013)
AHRC £66,384. Co-Investigator (PI Elizabeth Curtis)
This grant focuses on public engagement with community groups in Scotland who are carrying out heritage research. The groups are funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund's 'All Our Stories' initiative and we are supporting them through direct work with projects, regional workshops, and an interactive digital community learning hub.
Bennachie Landscapes: Investigating Communities Past and Present at the Colony Site (2013)
AHRC £79,739. Co-Investigator (PI Jeff Oliver)
This continues and expands the 2012 Bennachie project (below). It is a collaborative effort between the Bailies of Bennachie and the University of Aberdeen to shed light on the history of the 19th century farming community there. As well as oral history work I am leading an ethnographic reflexive strand on learning from community heritage research.
Sustainable Community Heritage in Scotland's North East: Bennachie and Beyond (2012)
AHRC £25,000. Co-Investigator (PI Gordon Noble)
This is an interdisciplinary community-centred research project on the past, present and future of one of north-east Scotland's most significant cultural and physical landmarks: the hill of Bennachie and its environs. The project facilitates public engagement with the region's landscape heritage and provides training and development opportunities for community research. Among my roles was leading oral history research on landscape memories and family connections with the hill. Project website.
Exploring Environmental Change Through New Connections in Art and Anthropology (2010-12)
Royal Society of Edinburgh £2787, Carnegie Trust £1000, Russell Trust £3000, University of Aberdeen Principal's Excellence Fund £500.
The project explores how art practice can produce alternative renderings of environmental change, and fieldwork happens in art and anthropology. It included field trips to Ilulissat, Greenland in May and October 2010. An exhibition was on show at King's Museum, University of Aberdeen from February to May 2012, and another took place in Ilulissat in October 2011.
Making Space for Water, Biodiversity and People in Scotland's Cities (2009-10)
Scottish Crucible Project Fund, with Rebecca Wade, Abertay University. £3000
This pilot project developed innovative methodologies for interdisciplinary collaboration around the role of small urban rivers in Scotland. We took case studies of Water of Leith in Edinburgh, the Dighty in Dundee and the Denburn in Aberdeen, and used shared walks to explore sustainable urban drainage, biodiversity and public access.
Bennachie Histories and Colony Project (2007-2009)
Bailies of Bennachie £8000. With Jennifer Fagen.
In conjunction with the Bailies of Bennachie community group, this was an oral history and archival project about the history of the hill of Bennachie in Aberdeenshire. It has developed into a programme of AHRC-funded research (see above).
Landscapes Beyond Land (2006-2007)
AHRC. With Arnar Árnason, Nicolas Ellison and Andrew Whitehouse.
This is a series of seminars exploring themes in the ethnography of landscape and environment. Papers are published in a book Landscapes Beyond Land and special issue of the journal Landscape Research.
Culture from the ground: walking, movement and placemaking (2004-2006)
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. Ethnographic fieldwork in and around the city of Aberdeen focused on how walking connects past, present and future time in personal and collective biographies, and also links places within networks of movement. Project webpage.
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 was an examination of rural development networks and social capital in six case study areas of Europe, co-ordinated by the University of Aberdeen. The findings have been published by Ashgate.
PhD: Landscape, Farming and Rural Social Change in Orkney, Scotland (2004)
My thesis examines processes of change in farming and rural society in the islands of Orkney in Scotland. The 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.
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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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