Section: Staff Profiles

Alan Barnard

Name
Professor Alan Barnard FBA
Title
Professor of the Anthropology of Southern Africa, Honorary Consul of the Republic of Namibia
Organisation
Social Anthropology, School of Social and Political Science
University of Edinburgh
Address
5.20 Chrystal Macmillan Building 15a George Square Edinburgh UK EH8 9LD
Telephone
+44 (0)131 650 3938
E-Mail
Research Interests
Southern Africa,Hunter gatherers,Human origins,Origins of language,Archaeology and anthropology,History of anthropology
URL
http://www.san.ed.ac.uk/staff/barnard_alan
Photo: Alan Barnard

Research Interests

  • comparative ethnography in southern Africa
  • contemporary hunter-gatherers
  • the history of anthropology
  • social anthropology and human origins
  • origins of language and symbolic thought
  • the co-evolution of language and kinship
  • the interface between archaeology and social anthropology

PhD Supervision

Alan Barnard supervises PhD students both in the Centre of African Studies and in the Subject Area of Social Anthropology. He is especially interested in supervising students planning to do fieldwork in Southern or Central Africa and those interested in human origins. 

Biographical statement

Alan Barnard has done fieldwork with Naro Bushmen (San) and other population groups in Botswana, Namibia and South Africa. He has written ten books and about a hundred research articles, mainly on Bushmen (San) and other hunter-gatherers, on kinship, and on the history of anthropology. He has edited seven collections, and his work has been translated into sixteen languages. His most recent books are Anthropology and the Bushman (2007) and Social Anthropology and Human Origins (2011), and Genesis of Symbolic Thought (2012). He co-edited (with Jonathan Spencer) the Routledge Encyclopedia of Social and Cultural Anthropology (second edition, 2010). He serves as Honorary Consul of Namibia in Scotland, and he is a Fellow of the British Academy.

His present ESRC-funded project, with Dr Gertrud Boden, is on language and kinship in the kalahari Basin: http://www2.hu-berlin.de/kba/

Recent Publications

         Soc_anth_and_human_origins         Genesis of Symbolic Thought

Anthropology and the Bushman. Oxford / New York: Berg Publishers. (2007)

‘From Mesolithic to Neolithic modes of thought’. In Alasdair Whittle and Vicki Cummings (eds), Going Over: The Mesolithic-Neolithic Transition in North-west Europe (Proceedings of the British Academy, 144). Oxford / New York: Oxford University Press for the British Academy. pp 5-19. (2007)

‘Ethnographic analogy and the reconstruction of early Khoekhoe society’. Southern African Humanities: A Journal of Cultural Studies 20: 61-75. (2008)

‘The co-evolution of language and kinship’. In N.J. Allen, Hillary Callan, Robin Dunbar and Wendy James (eds), Early Human Kinship: From Sex to Social Reproduction. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. pp 232-43. (2008)

‘Social origins: sharing, exchange, kinship’. In Rudolf Botha and Chris Knight (eds), The Cradle of Language (Studies in the Evolution of Language 12). Oxford / New York: Oxford University Press. pp 219-35. (2009)

Alan Barnard and Jonathan Spener (eds). The Routledge Encyclopedia of Social and Cultural Anthropology. London / New York: Routledge. (2010)

‘When individuals do not stop at the skin’. In Robin Dunbar, Clive Gamble and John Gowlett (eds), Social Brain, Distributed Mind (Proceedings of the British Academy, 158). Oxford / New York: Oxford University Press for the British Academy. pp 253-72. (2010)

'Culture: the indigenous account'. In Deborah James, Evlie Place and Christina Toren (eds), Culture Wars: Context, Models, and Anthropologists' Accounts (EASA Series, Vol. 12). New York / Oxford: Berhgahn Books. pp 73-85. (2010)

'Mythology and the evolution of language'. In Andrew D.M. Smith, Marieke Schouwstra, Bart de Boer and Kenny Smith (eds), The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 8th International Conference (EVOLANG8). Singapore: World Scientific Press. pp 11-18. (2010)

Social Anthropology and Human Origins. Cambridge / New York / etc.: Cambridge University Press. (2011)

‘John Arundel Barnes, 1918-2010’. Proceedings of the British Academy (Biographical Memoirs of Fellows 10) 172: 27-45. Oxford : Oxford University Press for the British Academy. (2011)

‘Widening the net: Returns to the field and regional understanding’. Signe Howell and Aud Talle (eds.), Returns to the Field: Multitemporal Research and Contemporary Anthropology. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. (2012)

Genesis of Symbolic Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (2012)

Topics interested in supervising

My research interests have covered southern Africa, hunter-gatherers, kinship theory, the history of anthropology, and particularly the Khoisan hunters and herders. I supervise a number of students in these fields, and would be happy to supervise anyone with such an interest. My current research is concentrated in the social anthropology of human origins, especially symbolic thought and the origins of language. I would be particularly delighted to take on new students is these areas.

If you are interested in being supervised by Alan Barnard, please see the links below for more information:

PhD In African Studies; PhD in Social Anthropology

This page was published on 29 March 2012


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