vCardDr Cathrine Degnen

Dr Cathrine Degnen
Lecturer in Social Anthropology

  • Email: cathrine.degnen@ncl.ac.uk
  • Telephone: +44 (0)191 222 8467
  • Address: Sociology
    Claremont Bridge Building
    Newcastle University
    Newcastle upon Tyne
    NE1 7RU
    UK

My research interests orbit around notions of self and experience, and the ways in which memory, place and narrativity intersect with selfhood. I am also interested in competing forms of expertise and whose knowledge (about self, ageing, science, food, genetic technologies) comes to count, socially speaking. I have conducted fieldwork in Labrador and in the north of England.

Research Interests

Medical anthropology; experiences of ageing and of social change; public understandings of science, food, and new genetic technologies; cultural constructions of self and of wellness; social memory, places, and absences.

Ethnographic areas: the north of England (South Yorkshire; Cheshire); Labrador.

Other Expertise

I am co-convenor of the Anthropology of Britain network. The aim of the network is to provide a forum which will facilitate a greater level of communication between researchers with an ethnographic interest in contemporary British society. Visit our website here: www.theasa.org/networks/aob.htm

I recently organised a symposium entitled 'Embodiment, Subjectivity and Ageing: Emerging Areas of Exploration'. This offered the opportunity to open up conversation amongst anthropologists, sociologists and researchers in assistive technology with a shared interest in ageing. Visit the website here:
http://www.ncl.ac.uk/niassh/Ageing/index.htm

Current Work

I am currently writing a monograph entitled 'Years in the Making: Ageing Selves and Everyday Life in the North of England' (Manchester University Press).

Selected Publications

More Publications

Projects

Postgraduate Supervision

I would be happy to discuss potential postgrad supervision with any student interested in any of the following topics: new genetics and society; ageing; identity and the self; anthropology and sociology fo the body; social memory; experience of place and of social change

Currently supervising:
Anu Vaittinen (scholarship funding) "Embodiment, Sensuous Experience and Mixed Martial Arts". Co-supervised with Monica Moreno Figueroa and Peter Phillimore

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

Esteem Indicators

I was recently invited to appear on BBC Radio Four to discuss one of my recent publications, 'On Vegetable Love: Gardening, Plants and People in the North of England':
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/thinkingallowed/
thinkingallowed_20090311.shtml

Selection of Conference and seminar papers presented:

May 2010 Invited speaker, Human Nutrition Research Centre seminar series, Newcastle University

March 2010 Invited speaker, Manchester University, 'Methods in Dialogue' seminar series on 'Researching Nature'.

March 2010 Invited speaker, Durham University, 'Multiplying Relationship' seminar series.

Feb. 2010 'On Knowing: Experiencing Place, Belonging, Self and Other'. Invited speaker, Sheffield University, Sociological Studies Department seminar series.

Sep. 2009 'Embodied, Emplaced and Enmeshed: Reflections on Ageing and the Self'. Paper presented at Embodiment, Subjectivity and Ageing symposium, Newcastle University.

July 2009 'Acting and Looking One's Age: Gendered Perspectives on Ageing and Old Age'. Paper presented at British Sociological Association Ageing, Body and Society conference, British Library, London.

Dec. 2008 'The ‘Art’ of Knowing: place, being and self'. Paper presented at the Association of Social Anthropologists annual meeting, Auckland, NZ. Was also panel co-convenor, panel entitled 'Social Transformation in the United Kingdom: Appropriation, Class and Identity'.

Oct. 2007 ‘Knowing, Being, Remembering: the Ageing Self in Post-Industrial England’. Invited paper presented at University of Durham, Medical Anthropology Research Group Seminar Series.

Oct. 2007 ‘Remembered Selves, Inhabited Selves, Ageing Selves’. Invited paper presented at University of Aberdeen, Department of Anthropology Seminar Series.

Oct. 2007 ‘Remembered Selves, Inhabited Selves, Ageing Selves: Reinserting Age into Theory of Self and Experience’. Invited paper presented at: Kent University, Department of Anthropology Seminar Series.

Sep. 2007 'Fruitful or futile? Anthropology, biotechnology and boomtown knowledge economies'. Invited paper presented at: Anthropology, Ethnography and Biotechnology conference, Lithuanian Institute of History and Vilnius University.

Apr. 2007 ‘Old Macdonald Had a Pharm: Animals, Science and Pharmaceutical Production’. Invited paper presented at PEALS seminar series, Newcastle.

Mar. 2007 'Placing Memory'. Invited speaker at Programme de Recherches Interdisciplinaires sur les Îles britanniques de l’EHESS, Paris.

Nov. 2006 ‘Brain Food: Feeding Children and Forging Kin in the GM Era’. Invited seminar paper presented at the Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology, Oxford University.

Sep. 2006 ‘Deliberating Democratically and Public Knowledges’. Paper presented at EASA, Bristol; was also panel co-convenor at same conference for panel on ‘Public Knowledge: Redistribution and Reinstitutionalisation’.

Jun. 2006 ‘A Coal Place, A Steel Place: Domesticating the Commemoration of Mining’. Paper presented at Steel Cities Conference: Tradition, Transition and Transformation, University of Sheffield.

Dec. 2005 ‘Softly, Softly: Comparative Silences in British Stories of Genetic Modification’. Paper presented at American Anthropological Association annual meeting, Washington DC.

Apr. 2005 ‘Back to the Future: Temporality, Narrative, and the Ageing Self’. Paper presented at Association of Social Anthropologists annual meeting, Aberdeen.

Dec. 2004 ‘Public Understandings of Genetics and Food’. Presentation at Genetics in Society Public Forum, Universitat de Barcelona.

June 2004 ‘Genetically Modified Food and Medical Anthropological approaches to the Body’. Paper presented at Public Understandings of Genetics Workshop. IESCO, Paris.

May 2004 ‘Are You What You Eat? Cultural Idioms and GM Foods in Britain’. Paper presented at Canadian Anthropological Association Annual Meeting. London, Ontario, Canada.

July 2003 Panel Discussant for ‘Makers of Meanings and Repositories of Knowledge: Museums in the Post-Colonial Era’, Association of Social Anthropologists annual meeting, Manchester, England.

June 2003 ‘Fielding Questions: Mapping the GM Debate in Britain’. Paper presented at Public Understandings of Genetics Workshop. Central European University, Budapest, Hungary.

Funding

2008 Foundation for the Sociology of Health and Illness, £2,000

2008 School of GPS Research Committee, £1750

2008 HaSS Faculty Small Grants, £500

2007 HaSS Faculty Futures Collaborative Project Award, £5,500 (shared)

2007 School of GPS Research Committee Small Bids, £495.75

2003 The Association of Social Anthropologists/Radcliffe-Brown Trust Fund Prize

2001 Flexible Fund Grant, Faculty of Social Sciences, The Open University

2000 Research Funding Grant, Faculty of Graduate Studies & Research, McGill University

1999 Fellowship, Faculty of Graduate Studies & Research, McGill University

1995-96 Max Bell Fellowship for Canadian and Northern Studies, McGill University

1995 Research Funding Grant, Faculty of Graduate Studies & Research, McGill University

1994-95 Max Bell Fellowship for Canadian and Northern Studies, McGill University

1994 President’s Commission on the Status of Women and the Women’s Center Award for Outstanding Academic Achievement, University of Connecticut

1994 The Diane M. Greenfield Memorial Scholarship, University of Connecticut, Department of Anthropology

Background

I studied Anthropology and French at the University of Connecticut and Université Laval in Quebec, and then began my graduate studies at McGill University. In 1996 I completed a MA in Medical Anthropology which involved fieldwork in Labrador (Canada). In 2003 I completed my PhD, based on fieldwork in South Yorkshire (UK) on everyday experiences of ageing, focusing on the intersection of ageing, sense of place, social transformation and social memory. I am particularly interested in how people navigate change and rupture in social fabric (which is both communal, due to great socio-economic changes locally and individual, due to the ageing process and the cultural positioning of older people). I conducted a third period of fieldwork in the north of England (2003-04) while I was a postdoc at the University of Manchester on the topic of public understandings of genetically modified food.

My theoretical interests orbit around notions of self and experience, and the ways in which memory, place and narrativity intersect with selfhood. I am also interested in competeing forms of expertise and whose knowledge (about self, science, food, genetic technologies) comes to count, socially speaking.

Roles and Responsibilities

MA Degree Programme Director, Sociology

Qualifications

PhD in Anthropology, McGill University, Canada

MA in Medical Anthropology, McGill University, Canada

BA (Hons) in Anthropology and French, Univ. of Connecticut, USA

Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice, Newcastle University

Year-long academic exchange program, Université Laval, Canada

Previous Positions

2003–2005 Post-doctoral Research Fellow, Department of Social Anthropology, University of Manchester

1999–2003 Associate Lecturer, Faculty of Social Science, The Open University in Yorkshire

1994–99 Teaching Assistant, Department of Anthropology, McGill University

1997–98 Research Assistant, Department of Sociology, Concordia University

1993 Research Assistant, Département de la Santé Communautaire, Québec

Memberships

2008 Fellow, The Higher Education Academy (UK)
2007 Appointed Networks Officer and Committee Member for the Association of Social Anthropologists of the UK and the Commonwealth (www.theasa.org)
2004 Fellow, The Royal Anthropological Institute
2004 Member, Association of Social Anthropologists
2003 Member, American Anthropological Association
2003 Member, Society for Medical Anthropology

Honours and Awards

2002 Honourable Mention Margaret Clark Essay Competition

1996 Dean's Honour List, MA thesis, McGill University

1994 Phi Beta Kappa Honour Society, University of Connecticut

1993-94 University Scholar, University of Connecticut (the most prestigious academic position that can be awarded to an undergraduate student)

1994 President’s Commission on the Status of Women and the Women’s Center Award for Outstanding Academic Achievement, University of Connecticut

1994 The Diane M. Greenfield Memorial Scholarship, University of Connecticut, Department of Anthropology

Languages

English; French

Undergraduate Teaching

SOC 1027 Comparing Cultures
SOC 2058 Understanding Social Change and Transformation (contribute)
SOC 3066 Gene Wars: The Anthropology of Biotechnology and Society

Postgraduate Teaching

SOC 8044 Being, Belonging and Identity (alternate years)
HSS 8044 Qualitative Rsearch Methods (contribute, alternate years)