Thomas Yarrow
I am a senior lecturer in social anthropology.
The key theoretical and empirical focus of my research has been to better understand the practices and social relations through which expert knowledge is produced and circulated. Rather than understand such knowledge as abstract propositional claims, my research demonstrates how expertise is grounded in a range of practices that are indisollubly social and material. Through a series of projects I have examined how different kinds of expertise are linked to social and material interventions that can have a range of more or less intended consequences.
My most recent research explores how the historic environment is produced through the intersecting practices of a range of professionals, including conservation experts, craft practitioners, architects, conservation scientists and planners. These issues are examined through ongoing ethnographic research based at Historic Scotland (British Academy funded). I am exploring similar issues through a project on the effects of conservation science on understandings of historic value and significance of historic monuments (AHRC funded),and through a project on the tensions between heritage conservation and energy conservation in the built environment (EPSRC and AHRC funded). Collectively these projects help to illuminate the complex social dynamics through which heritage practice constructs the historic environment, and with what broader social consequences.
A second strand of my research examines ‘development’ as an idea that sustains multiple and conflicting practices (Differentiating Development: Beyond an Anthropology of Critique, Berghahn). Research on the Volta Resettlement Project, Ghana, (funded by a Leverhulme fellowship) focuses on the materialisation of ideas of ‘development’ and ‘modernity’ and how these ideas are embedded in the everyday lives of resettlers. Research on Ghanaian NGOs, looks at the social relations and practices through which they pursue various forms of ‘social action’ (Development Beyond Politics, Palgrave Macmillan). The theoretical significance of this work lies in its challenge to the political reductionism of prevailing development scholarship, and the ‘Afro-pessimism’ of wider social theory pertaining to the post-colonial state in Africa. More recently my work has increasingly focused on the problematic relationship between anthropology and development, arguing for the need for approaches that bridge this gap by being ‘useful’ but not narrowly ‘applied’.
A final strand of my research focuses on the construction of archaeological knowledge (Archaeology and Anthropology: understanding similarity, exploring difference, Oxbox).Ethnographic work on excavation constitutes a new perspective on the processes by which archaeological data is produced .
The key theoretical and empirical focus of my research has been to better understand the practices and social relations through which expert knowledge is produced and circulated. Rather than understand such knowledge as abstract propositional claims, my research demonstrates how expertise is grounded in a range of practices that are indisollubly social and material. Through a series of projects I have examined how different kinds of expertise are linked to social and material interventions that can have a range of more or less intended consequences.
My most recent research explores how the historic environment is produced through the intersecting practices of a range of professionals, including conservation experts, craft practitioners, architects, conservation scientists and planners. These issues are examined through ongoing ethnographic research based at Historic Scotland (British Academy funded). I am exploring similar issues through a project on the effects of conservation science on understandings of historic value and significance of historic monuments (AHRC funded),and through a project on the tensions between heritage conservation and energy conservation in the built environment (EPSRC and AHRC funded). Collectively these projects help to illuminate the complex social dynamics through which heritage practice constructs the historic environment, and with what broader social consequences.
A second strand of my research examines ‘development’ as an idea that sustains multiple and conflicting practices (Differentiating Development: Beyond an Anthropology of Critique, Berghahn). Research on the Volta Resettlement Project, Ghana, (funded by a Leverhulme fellowship) focuses on the materialisation of ideas of ‘development’ and ‘modernity’ and how these ideas are embedded in the everyday lives of resettlers. Research on Ghanaian NGOs, looks at the social relations and practices through which they pursue various forms of ‘social action’ (Development Beyond Politics, Palgrave Macmillan). The theoretical significance of this work lies in its challenge to the political reductionism of prevailing development scholarship, and the ‘Afro-pessimism’ of wider social theory pertaining to the post-colonial state in Africa. More recently my work has increasingly focused on the problematic relationship between anthropology and development, arguing for the need for approaches that bridge this gap by being ‘useful’ but not narrowly ‘applied’.
A final strand of my research focuses on the construction of archaeological knowledge (Archaeology and Anthropology: understanding similarity, exploring difference, Oxbox).Ethnographic work on excavation constitutes a new perspective on the processes by which archaeological data is produced .
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Papers by Thomas Yarrow
This book re-describes electricity and its infrastructures using insights from anthropology and science and technology studies, raising fascinating questions about the contemporary world and its future. Through ethnographic studies of bulbs, bicycles, dams, power grids and much more, the contributors shed light on practices that are often overlooked, showing how electricity is enacted in multiple ways. Electrifying Anthropology moves beyond the idea of electricity as an immovable force, and instead offers a set of potential trajectories for thinking about electricity and its effects in contemporary society.
This book re-describes electricity and its infrastructures using insights from anthropology and science and technology studies, raising fascinating questions about the contemporary world and its future. Through ethnographic studies of bulbs, bicycles, dams, power grids and much more, the contributors shed light on practices that are often overlooked, showing how electricity is enacted in multiple ways. Electrifying Anthropology moves beyond the idea of electricity as an immovable force, and instead offers a set of potential trajectories for thinking about electricity and its effects in contemporary society.
"Thomas Yarrow's book is extremely valuable and opens up anthropological writing to folks who aren't already a part of the conversation. Anyone will be able to read and relate to Architects." Keith M. Murphy, University of California, Irvine, and author of Swedish Design
"Tacking deftly between vivid narrative description and rich theoretical reflection, this outstanding book will appeal to a wide readership in anthropology, design, art, and architecture." Anand Pandian, Johns Hopkins University, and author of Reel World
"A beautiful description of the struggle and doubts of the design process, Yarrow's anthropological gaze is enchanted by the practice office that represents a way of life, contains bits of everything, and has little room for more. Architects is one of the most generous books I have read." Prue Chiles, Newcastle University and Chiles Evans + Care Architects
What is creativity? What is the relationship between work life and personal life? How is it possible to live truthfully in a world of contradiction and compromise? These deep and deeply personal questions spring to the fore in Thomas Yarrow's vivid exploration of the life of architects. Yarrow takes us inside the world of architects, showing us the anxiety, exhilaration, hope, idealism, friendship, conflict, and the personal commitments that feed these acts of creativity. Architects rethinks "creativity," demonstrating how it happens in everyday practice. It highlights how the pursuit of good architecture, relates to the pursuit of a good life in intimate and individually specific ways. And it reveals the surprising and routine social negotiations through which designs and buildings are actually made. Thomas Yarrow is a social anthropologist whose work focuses on the social life of expertise. He is particularly interested in everyday interactions through which professional knowledge is produced, the personal and ideological commitments that propel this work, and the routine ethical dilemmas that arise. For Architects, Yarrow turned his attention to the lives and work of ten architects who comprise the Millar Howard Workshop, an architectural firm in the Cotswolds, UK. Yarrow is also the author of Development Beyond Politics, and the co-author of Detachment, Differentiating Development, and Archaeology and Anthropology.
This book re-describes electricity and its infrastructures using insights from anthropology and science and technology studies, raising fascinating questions about the contemporary world and its future. Through ethnographic studies of bulbs, bicycles, dams, power grids and much more, the contributors shed light on practices that are often overlooked, showing how electricity is enacted in multiple ways. Electrifying Anthropology moves beyond the idea of electricity as an immovable force, and instead offers a set of potential trajectories for thinking about electricity and its effects in contemporary society.
With new contributions on an emerging area of research, this timely collection will be of value to students and scholars of anthropology, science and technology studies, geography and engineering.
This project examines how ideas about heritage conservation, a set of beliefs about the value of continuity and tradition, exist in relation to ideas about the need for environmentally motivated changes to a range of historic buildings. The project aims to understand the cultural meanings and social dynamics through which heritage and energy futures are constructed, through a study of the attitudes, values and beliefs of a range of building professionals and home owners. The project uses a mixture of methods, including interviewing and sustained detailed observation in relation to case-study buildings, combined with analysis of the broader discourses and cultural understandings that inform the positions of the professionals and clients involved.
This major project, which will run from July 2016 to the end of September 2019. The funding is provided by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the project involves research teams in Durham University and University College London. We are proposing to conduct research and to exchange knowledge with stakeholders in order to understand how ideas and materials derived from the Iron Age and Roman past (c. 700 BC to AD 400) are drawn upon today in England, Scotland and Wales.
Powerful ideas about European cultural origin stemming from the writings of classical authors who drew a distinction between 'civilization' and 'barbarism' have been used to contrast native peoples with Roman invaders. In Britain concepts of civilization and barbarism have influenced how people understand the extent and character of the territories that make up the UK, the origins of their inhabitants and how they relate to people from overseas. The Iron Age and Roman periods are highly popular in present-day Britain as demonstrated, for example, by the frequency and interest with which important archaeological discoveries are communicated via newspapers, magazines, television, films (e.g. 'Centurion' and 'The Eagle') and novels. Community projects focusing on the Iron Age are addressing themes such as housing and sustainable ways of living, while the Roman past offers opportunities for considering military identity, concepts of civilisation and multicultural origins (see the visual evidence). Ancient monuments dating to these periods and the museums that display them are popular visitor attractions. Re-enacting, metal-detecting and taking part in archaeological projects are generating new and relevant forms of knowledge.
Academic research on the Iron Age and Roman past in the UK is widely recognised across Europe and America for its excellence, but, until now, the exploration of meaning in the past has often been distanced from the interests and concerns of the broader public (Hingley 2015). This project offers the new perspective of studying the living meaning of Iron Age and Roman materials and ideas by examining the creative and variable ways in which stakeholders incorporate the past into their researches, performances and actions. We will also unpick the values of heritage that are specific to the Iron Age and Roman pasts from those that are not. Our methodologies will allow access to significant new bodies of information both online and offline.
We will seek to communicate our findings in order to challenge the divisions that currently separate the interests of stakeholders, including (but not limited to) academic archaeologists, heritage managers, re-enactors, visitors to ancient monuments and teachers. We intend to promote our work by developing existing contacts with researchers and practitioners in archaeology, heritage and museums nationally and internationally. Drawing upon the project team's connections, we will exchange knowledge of our results through digital means, conferences, and publications.
2. Objectives
We aim to develop and communicate a coherent and transformative understanding of the complex and contrasting ways that the Iron Age and Roman pasts are drawn upon by stakeholders today across England, Wales and Scotland, and to set this in an international context. Much of the attention of archaeologists to date has focused on criticizing imperial and nationalistic uses of concepts of Romanization and Celtic identity (cf. Mattingly 2011; Morse 2005). This project will adopt a more open approach to address the wide variety of manifestations of Iron Age and Roman Heritage (IA&RH), documenting both how materials and ideas from the past are received, interpreted, performed and cited and also the role of 'expert practice' (Jones and Yarrow 2013, 7).