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Professor Rebecca Cassidy FBA

Rebecca Cassidy's research interests are social anthropology, particularly kinship and inequality, animal and plant breeding, betting and gambling, policy and public health.
Fellow type
UK Fellow
Year elected
2026
Sections
Anthropology and Geography

Summary

Rebecca Cassidy is a social anthropologist who specialises in kinship and inequality, animal and plant breeding, betting and gambling, policy and public health. She has contributed to the development of other than human studies in anthropology, working on horses and apples. She has also participated in the development of a critical approach to the gambling industries, engaging closely with public health and policy studies.

Much of her work focuses on the United Kingdom, although she has also conducted fieldwork in Europe, the United States, and Central Asia. Her publications range from monographs about horseracing and thoroughbred breeding (Sport of Kings, 2002; Horse People, 2007) to open access reports designed to inform policy makers about gambling industry funded research (Fair Game, 2014).

Her most recent monograph describes how commercial gambling responded to deregulation (Vicious Games, 2022).

Current post

University of Cambridge William Wyse Professor of Social Anthropology

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