缅北禁地

I am an anthropologist whose research is focused on how people create meaning and make sense of their social worlds in contexts of social transformation. I have explored this central interest in two key empirical areas: older age and everyday life, and the anthropology of Britain. Within these two main fields, I have examined in closer details issues including personhood and the self; identity, belonging and social memory; and the creative affordances of place. I am an elected Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, a Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute, and a member of the Association of Social Anthropologists (ASA).

I welcome inquiries from prospective PhD researchers and colleagues working in allied fields. 

I first joined 缅北禁地 as a Lecturer in Social Anthropology, and prior to this I was a post doc at Manchester University in the Social Anthropology Department. I received my PhD in Anthropology and my MA in Medical Anthropology from McGill University.

Research Interests

My research focuses on how people create meaning and make sense of their social worlds in contexts of social transformation. I have built a significant body of work exploring this central interest in two key empirical areas: older age and everyday life, and the anthropology of Britain.

In my career to date, I have engaged with social transformation at multiple levels of scale, from the macro level of post-industrial rupture, to emergent shifts in social identity politics, to the development of new technologies (genetic and digital), to more micro levels of transformation, such as when our ageing bodies begin posing dilemmas for our sense of self and of personhood.

As an anthropologist and ethnographer, all of my research is grounded in a fundamental commitment to the lives of the people I have worked with, and to what matters to them in their everyday experiences. By attending to these experiences and forms of meaning-making in a richly detailed and finely grained way, I have contributed to debates in contemporary social theory on personhood and on self; on identity, belonging and social memory; and on the creative affordances of place.

My work on ageing challenges assumptions of later life in Western society, generally represented as a series of problems - medical, social, economic - to be solved. My research refocuses attention on the rich complexity and experiences of real people and their everyday lives as they age, highlighting the perspectives of older people themselves about what it is to grow older. This includes the importance of both social memory and of place for negotiating profound social transformation. It also includes developing a critique of an implicitly middle-aged, universalised self, one which does not allow for the distinctiveness and vitality of older age as lived that I argue demands recognition. I have recently begun a new strand of work exploring these interests in the northwest of Ghana (with Dr Constance Akurugu, UBIDS). 

In (2018) I build on and extend some of my research interests in later life to explore the category of the person across the life course. In it, I explore the question "what does it mean to be a person?". I consider how answers to this question vary cross culturally as well as through the life course. Broader theoretical considerations that stem from these questions include anthropological concepts of relatedness (how people create and dismantle connections with each other and the world as they move through the life course) and ontology (ideas about states of being and existence, with reference to how these might shift through stages of life).

Other writing projects include Virtually There: Teaching and Doing Ethnography Online (Routledge, with Sarah Winkler-Reid and Audrey Ricke, under contract), (Routledge, 2025 with Katharine Tyler and Susan Banducci), and the  (with Katharine Tyler). My first research monograph,   (2012) , was reviewed in the ,  and 

Ethnographic areas: the north of England (North East; South Yorkshire; Cheshire); Labrador; northwest of Ghana.

Research projects

2024-2026 £15, 860. ESRC IAA Strategic Fund Improving Older Women’s Lives in Rural Ghana by Enhancing Economic Empowerment and Tackling Gendered Ageism. PI with Co-I Dr Constance Akurugu, University of Business and Integrated Development Studies, Wa, Ghana.

2020-2022 £475, 407. UKRI ESRC . PI Katharine Tyler (Exeter). Extending the work of our previous project on Identity, Belonging, the Media and Brexit, here we used mass surveys and in-depth ethnographic fieldwork across England to explore how the covid19 pandemic is both creating new social inequalities as well as reinforcing existing ones. 

2018-2022 £753,728. ESRC. . PI Katharine Tyler (Exeter). This substantial piece of ethnographic and quantitative research explored how everyday experiences of identity inform people's attitudes to immigration and their senses of belonging (or not) to local places, the nation, and Europe in Brexit Britain. As Co-I on this project, I have conducted 12 months of ethnographic participant observation in the North East of England alongside my colleagues doing the same in the East Midlands (Dr Joshua Blamire) and the South West (Dr Katharine Tyler). 

2016-2018 £1.1 million. AHRC. Creative Fuse North East (). PI Eric Cross. I was Co-I on this project, leading an ethnographic work package exploring the anthropology of knowledge production via the ‘fusion’ of creativity, culture and digital technology, working with Dr .

I have also been involved in a series of projects that develop my interests in ageing and in place:

2014-2017 £1.7 million. EPSRC Health and Wellbeing for the Built Environment Programme. "Mobility and Place for the Age-Friendly City Environment" (). PI Pete Wright.

2011-2013 £253,799. MRC Life Long Health and Wellbeing Programme. "Ageing Creatively: a pilot study to explore the relation of creative arts interventions to wellbeing in later life". PI Eric Cross. See this  for more information on our research.

In 2009-2010, I collaborated with Michiko Nitta, a speculative designer and artist, on our shared interest in people's relationships (past, present and future) with nature as part of the Interventions Project. Please visit for more details. The outcome of this project was exhibited 29th June - 9th July 2010, ExLibris Gallery, Fine Art Building, 缅北禁地 with other Interventions Project colleagues.

Esteem Indicators

2025: Elected as Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences.

2015- : Committee Member and Special Edition Assessor, Royal Anthropological Institute, Publications Committee.

2012- : Editorial Board member, Ageing & Society (Cambridge University Press).

2015-2019: Honorary Secretary of Executive Committee of the Association of Social Anthropologists of the UK (ASA).

I was invited to appear on BBC Radio Four's Thinking Allowed to discuss one of my publications, 

Postgraduate Supervision

I would be happy to discuss potential postgraduate supervision with any student interested in any of the following topics: ageing and later life; identity and the self; anthropology and sociology of the body; social memory; place attachment/place identity; experiences of social change; new genetics and society; human relations with the natural world; anthropology of Britain; using ethnographic methods.

Currently supervising:

Mizuho Kawashima (ESRC NINE DTP funding) Co-supervised with Dr Bethan Harries.

Rose Powell (NUAct funding) Co-supervised with Dr Mwenza Blell.

Graduated:

Dr Ceri Black (ESRC 1+3 funded) "Virginity Practices: Sociological Perspectives on Agency, Identity and the Body". Co-supervised with Dr Steph Lawler.

Dr Anu Vaittinen (School of GPS scholarship funding) "Embodiment, Sensuous Experience and Mixed Martial Arts". Co-supervised with Dr Monica Moreno Figueroa and Professor Peter Phillimore.

Dr Deborah Burn (ESRC 1+3 funded) "The Social World of the Allotment". Co-supervised with John Vail.

Dr Constance Awinpoka Akurugu (funded by Ghanaian Ministry of Education) "Marriage, Power and Performativity: Theorising Gender Relations in Rural Northern Ghana". Co-supervised with Dr Carolyn Pedwell.

Dr Kate Gibson (ESRC funded) "Feeding the Middle Classes: Taste, Classed Identity and Domestic Food Practices". Co-supervised with Dr Lisa Garforth and Professor Alison Stenning.

Dr Simona Palladino (EPSRC and FMS funded) "Place Identity and Place Attachment among Italian Older Migrants in 缅北禁地 upon Tyne". Co-supervised with Professor Katie Brittain.

Dr Jane Nolan (SELLLS funded) "Narrating Employability from English Studies: An Ethnographic Study". Co-supervised with Professor Jennifer Richards.

Dr Silvia Maritati (缅北禁地 Research Excellence Academy funding) " 'The System is Wicked in this Babylon-Europe!' Exploring Asylum Seekers’ Moral Reasoning at the Urban Margins of Europe”. Co-supervised with Dr Silvia Pasquetti.

Dr Bethan Griffith (ESRC NINE DTP funding) "Caring for a Sick Society: Situating Social Prescribing in Primary Care Practices". Co-supervised with Professor Suzanne Moffatt.

Undergraduate Teaching

SOC 1027 Comparing Cultures (with Dr Mwenza Blell)

SOC 3077 Making People: the Anthropology of Personhood

SOC 3097 Undergraduate Dissertation in Sociology (dissertation supervisor)

MA Teaching

SOC 8072 Social Inequalities: Issues and Intersections

In previous years:

SOC 2058 Understanding Social Change and Transformation (a history of ideas in Anthropology and Sociology)

SOC 2070 This is How We Do It: Sociology Research Design and Proposal

SOC 3066 Gene Wars: An Anthropology of Science and Society

SOC 8044 Being, Belonging, and Identity

HSS 8004 Qualitative Research Methods (contributed)

• Articles

  • Degnen C. . Cultural Anthropology 2026. In Press.
  • Ricke A, Winkler-Reid S, Degnen C. . Teaching Anthropology 2026. In Press.
  • Degnen C, Pasquetti S, Barnes H, Marchetti C, Rossi M. . Refuge: Canada's Journal on Refugees 2025, 41(1), 1-16.
  • Akurugu CA, Degnen C. . Ethnos 2024, 89(5), 767-785.
  • Tyler K, Degnen C, Blamire J. . Ethnos 2024, 89(5), 889-906.
  • Degnen C, Tyler K, Blamire J. . Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 2024, 30(1), 23-41.
  • Brittain K, Degnen C. . Sociology of Health & Illness 2022, 44(2), 416-431.
  • Horvath L, Banducci S, Blamire J, Degnen C, James O, Jones A, Stevens D, Tyler K. . BMJ Open 2022, 12(1), e053327.
  • Brittain K, Degnen C, Gibson G, Dickinson C, Robinson AL. . Sociology of Health and Illness 2017, 39(2), 270-284.
  • Degnen C, Tyler K. . The Sociological Review 2017, 65(1), 20-34.
  • Degnen C, Tyler K. . The Sociological Review 2017, 65(1), 35-53.
  • Degnen C. . Ageing and Society 2016, 36(8), 1645-1667.
  • Degnen C. . Teaching Anthropology 2013, 3(1), 3-16.
  • Degnen C. . Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 2013, 31(3), 554-570.
  • Degnen C. . Current Anthropology 2011, 52(5), 676-677.
  • Degnen C. . Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 2009, 15(1), 151-167.
  • Degnen C, Jeffrey AS. . Geographical Journal 2007, 173(4), 391–394.
  • Degnen C. . Journal of Aging Studies 2007, 21(1), 69-80.
  • Degnen C. . Ethnologie française 2007, 37(2), 285-293.
  • Degnen C. . Focaal 2006, 48, 67-82.
  • Degnen C. . Cambridge Anthropology 2005, 25(2), 50-63.
  • Degnen C. . The Sociological Review 2005, 53(4), 729–744.
  • Degnen C. . Anthropology Today 2005, 21(5), 24.

• Authored Books

  • Degnen C. . New York, NY, USA: Palgrave Macmillian, 2018.
  • Degnen C. . Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2012.

• Book Chapters

  • Winkler-Reid S, Degnen C, Ricke A. Opening up into the world: teaching ethnographic methods via a cross-cultural virtual exchange. In: Cathrine Degnen, Sarah Winkler-Reid, and Audrey Ricke, ed. Virtually There: Teaching and Doing Ethnography Online. Routledge, 2027. In Preparation.
  • Akurugu CA, Degnen C. Gendered Aging with Human and Non-human Others: Lessons from Rural Northwestern Ghana. In: Akerkar, S; Danely, J, ed. Routledge Handbook of Anthropological and Development Studies Approaches to Aging. Routledge, 2025. Submitted.
  • Hoang J, Patterson D, Banducci S, Tyler K, Stevens D, Blamire J, Degnen C, Horvath L. . In: Tyler K; Degnen C; Banducci S, ed. Reflections on Polarisation and Inequalities in Brexit Pandemic Times. London: Routledge, 2025, pp.305-334.
  • Degnen C. . In: Julia Twigg and Wendy Martin, ed. Routledge Handbook of Cultural Gerontology, 2nd edition. London: Routledge, 2025. In Press.
  • Tyler K, Banducci S, Degnen C. . In: Tyler K; Banducci S; Degnen C, ed. Reflections on Polarisation and Inequalities in Brexit Pandemic Times : Fractured Lives in Britain. London: Routledge, 2025, pp.3-28.
  • Blamire J, Tyler K, Degnen C. . In: Tyler, K; Degnen C; Banducci S, ed. Reflections on Polarisation and Inequalities in Brexit Pandemic Times : Fractured Lives in Britain. London: Routledge, 2025, pp.179-205.
  • Degnen C, Brittain K. . In: Douglas C; Whitehouse A, ed. More-Than-Human Aging: Animals, robots, and care in later life. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2024.
  • Degnen C. . In: Twigg,J;Martin,W, ed. Routledge Handbook of Cultural Gerontology. Taylor and Francis Inc, 2015, pp.105-112.
  • Degnen C. . In: Bolton, M., Degnen, C, ed. Animals and Science: From Colonial Encounters to the Biotech Industry. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2010, pp.220-245.
  • Bolton M, Degnen C. . In: Bolton, M., Degnen, C, ed. Animals and Science: From Colonial Encounters to the Biotech Industry. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2010, pp.1-29.
  • Degnen C. . In: Edwards, J and Salazar, C, ed. European Kinship in the Age of Biotechnology. Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2009, pp.45-63.
  • Degnen C. . In: Hallam E; Ingold T, ed. Creativity and Cultural Improvisation. Oxford: Berg, 2007, pp.223-235.
  • Degnen C. . In: Scott CH, ed. Aboriginal Autonomy and Development in Northern Quebec-Labrador. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2001, pp.357-378.

• Edited Books

  • Degnen C, Winkler-Reid S, Ricke A, ed. Virtually There: Teaching and Doing Ethnography Online (under contract). Routledge, 2027. In Preparation.
  • Tyler K, Degnen C, Banducci S, ed. . London: Routledge, 2025.
  • Degnen C, Tyler K, ed. . London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2017.
  • Bolton M, Degnen C, ed. . Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2010.

• Online Publication

  • Degnen C. . The Humanities Research Institute, University of Sheffield, 2006. Available at: .

• Reports

  • Verma A, Degnen C. . 2018.
  • Knowles C, MacDonald ME, Degnen C. . Montréal: CQRS, 1998.

• Reviews

  • Degnen C. . Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 2014, 20(3), 600-601.
  • Degnen C. . Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 2009, 15(1), 192-193.
  • Degnen C. . Anthropologica 2004, 46(2), 291-293.
  • Degnen C. . Social Anthropology 2002, 10(2), 262-264.