Living and writing anthropology: experiments in anthropological non-fiction

Delivered by the most outstanding academics in the UK and beyond, the British Academy’s flagship Lecture programme showcases the very best scholarship in the humanities and social sciences.

About the event

Emma Tarlo reflects on her long term engagement in the craft of anthropology and her experiments with developing new forms of anthropological non-fiction writing and exhibition making. Drawing on experiences which range from tracking the global trade in human hair across different continents to sharing food and friendship with two men living without shelter near her home in central London, she argues for the importance of serendipity in anthropological research and shares what she has learned about putting anthropological ideas into practice both in writing and in life.

Speaker

Professor Emma Tarlo is a Professor Emerita of Anthropology at Goldsmiths. Her most recent books, Entanglement: the Secret lives of Hair (Victor Turner Prize 2017) and Under the Hornbeams experiment with new forms of anthropological non-fiction. From 2024 to 2025 she was a Cullman Fellow at the New York Public Library.

Chair

Professor Janet Carsten FBA, University of Edinburgh

Professor Janet Carsten is Emeritus Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Edinburgh. Her most recent book, Marriage and Moral Imagination, was published in 2026.