Professor James Staples
Professor - Anthropology
Marie Jahoda 221
- Email: james.staples@brunel.ac.uk
- Tel: +44 (0)1895 267412
- Anthropology
- Social Science and Communications
Summary
After completing a first degree in anthropology in 1990 I worked for nearly ten years as a journalist before my ongoing fascination with South India drew me back to SOAS, University of London, to undertake a PhD. Thanks to ESRC and British Academy Fellowships I was able to stay on there for four years after completion as a post-doctoral fellow, broadening out my initial research on the social consequences of leprosy to consider how attitudes towards negatively construed bodily differences in India are shaped by – and shape – ideas about what constitutes human completeness. A further 16-months’ fieldwork in Hyderabad examined how the category of disability is constituted in multiple ways, and how it is experienced by disabled people in their day-to-day interactions. I joined Brunel as a lecturer in January 2007, returning regularly to my original field site to pursue new research on various topics, including food and social mobility, and suicide.
Qualifications:
- PhD Social Anthropology (SOAS, London) 2003
- BA (Hons) Social Anthropology (SOAS, London) 1990
- PG Cert (Brunel) 2008
Responsibility
Divisional Senior Tutor, REF co-ordinator, Director of South Asia Studies Research Group, Deputy Divisional Lead
Newest selected publications
Staples, J. (2025) 'Disabling Stories and Tales of Disability: Making Sense of Narratives in South India', in Sati, S., Das, S. and Mahanta, B. (eds.) Narratives of Disability: Global Perspectives. Springer.
Staples, J. (2025) 'Food, Place, and Personhood in South India: The Limits of Terroir', in Colquhoun, A. and Graf, K. (eds.) Beyond Terroir: Tasting Place and Placing Taste in Global Perspective. Oxford : Berghahn.
Staples, J. (2025) ''. Medical Anthropology Quarterly: international journal for the cultural and social analysis of health, 0 (accepted, in press). ISSN: 0745-5194
Staples, J. and Marsland, R. (2024) ''. Medical Anthropology: cross-cultural studies in health and illness, 43 (1). pp. 1 - 4. ISSN: 0145-9740
Staples, J. and Friedner, M. (2024) 'Disability on the Move: Disabled Mobilities in Contemporary India', in Linder, B. and Bedi, T. (eds.) South Asia on the Move: Mobilities, Mobilizations, Maneuvers.. Amsterdam : Amsterdam University Press. pp. 179 - 198. ISBN 10: 94-6372-649-7. ISBN 13: 978-94-6372-649-8.