I am a social anthropologist at The University of Edinburgh working at the intersection of education and ethics. My research explores how experience-based education informs how students view equality, democracy, and social responsibility in local and global relationships. By using the body as an analytic, I assess how embodied activities in Norwegian folk high school education shape ethical questions relating to consumer behavior, development, and religious practice. I use multi-modal and co-creative methods, exploring the role photography, film, and music can play in illuminating ethnographic work.
I have a bachelor’s degree in Communication Studies from Temple University in Philadelphia, PA, which has informed how I utilize technical skills in sound production, photography, and broadcast journalism in my current ethnographic practice. After graduation, I taught in high schools, universities, and in various community learning programs in the area, and received a Master of Theological and Cultural Anthropology from Eastern University in 2018. My most recent teaching posts have included teaching and lecturing at The School of Social and Political Science at Edinburgh and the Edinburgh Futures Institute, where I’ve taught “Social Anthropology 1B: Anthropology Matters,” “People First: The Anthropology of Development” (masters course, online), “Anthropology and Environment” (online), “Climate Change and Social Life,” “Ethnography: Theory and Practice,” “Sustainable Development 1A,” “Social Anthropology Undergraduate Dissertation,” and “Religious Identity Through Story.”
I have also developed embodied and experimental ethnographic method workshops funded by Edinburgh’s Student Development Office and produce music, film, and photography in my own work, including with my band Cape Wrath.
If you’d like to get in touch please email me at: jamiglisson@gmail.com.
Portrait by Buddy Szczesniak. All other photographs by Jamie Glisson.