Sandra Bamford
Not currently accepting new graduate student supervisions
Sandra Bamford received her PhD in Anthropology from the University of Virginia. Her main area of research expertise focuses on the analysis of kinship and family ties. She has completed research in the highlands of Papua New Guinea with a group of people known as the Kamea. She has also examined the impact of New Reproductive Technologies in precipitating new forms of kin arrangements. Her most recent work focuses on the institution of child welfare and foster care in North America with an emphasis on how foster care is understood and practised in Canada.
Education
University of Virginia, 1997
Professional Service
Reviewer of journal manuscripts for Body and Society, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, The Australian Journal of Anthropology, Ethnos, Anthropologica, Comparative Studies in Society and History, American Ethnology, Social Analysis, JRAI.
Reviewer of book manuscripts for Berghahn Books, University of Hawaii Press, School of American Research Press.
Reviewer of grant applications for the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Select Affiliations
American Anthropological Association
Canadian Anthropological Society
Courses
Undergraduate:
Families: Kinship and Marriage from a Cross-Cultural Perspective
Feminist Theory and Anthropology
Political Ecology
Producing People and Things: Economies and Social Life
The Body in Culture and Society Culture
Science, Culture and Biotechnology: Redefining the ‘Natural’ Order of Things
An Introduction to Pacific Island Societies
Ecological Anthropology
Economic Anthropology
Fieldwork in Social and Cultural Anthropology
Introduction to Anthropology: Society, Culture, and Language
The Anthropology of ‘Life Itself’
Reading Ethnography
Graduate:
Critical Issues in Ethnography
Theoretical Paradigms and Case Studies
Genders and Sexualities
Kinship, Science and Technology
Major Awards and Grants
2010
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Standard Research Grant. “Legislating Care: Kinship, Fosterage and the State in North America.” ($ 87,643.00)
Previous Sources of Funding:
2001
Connaught New Staff Matching Grant, University of Toronto, “Landscapes of Meaning: Reassessing The Nature/Culture Divide.” ($30,000.00)
2000
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Standard Research Grant. “Contested Terrains: The Globalization of Environmental Agendas.” ($75,000.00)
1996
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada – Two-Year Postdoctoral Award – Tenable at the Research School of Pacific and awarded for dissertation research. Asian Studies; Australian National University (Declined)
1989
Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research Pre-doctoral grant-in-aid for dissertation research.
1988 & 1989
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Doctoral fellowship
Publications
Refereed Manuscripts and Edited Collections:
In preparation
The Cambridge Handbook for the Anthropology of Kinship. (Under contract with Cambridge University Press. Anticipated date of completion – Fall 2015).
Roy Wagner: Symbolic Anthropology and the Fate of the New Melanesian Anthropology (Co-edited by S. Bamford, J. Robbins, J. Shaffner & J. Weiner. Anticipated date of completion – Fall 2015).
2009
Beyond Kinship: The Genealogical Model Reconsidered.(Edited collection by Sandra Bamford & James Leach) Berghahn Books. (Reissued as paperback 2012).
2007
Biology Unmoored: Melanesian Reflections on Life and Biotechnology. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Embodying Modernity and Post-Modernity: Ritual, Praxis and Social Change in Melanesia. (Edited collection by S. Bamford) Carolina Academic Press).
1998
Identity, Nature and Culture: Sociality and the Environment in Melanesia. Special Issue, SOCIAL ANALYSIS 42 (3). (Edited collection by Sandra Bamford).
1997
Fieldwork Revisited: The Changing Context of Ethnographic Practice in the Era of Globalization. Special Issue, ANTHROPOLOGY AND HUMANISM. (Co-edited with Joel Robbins).
Refereed Journal Articles and Book Chapters:
In preparation
“Miraculous Conceptions: Religion and the New Reproductive Technologies.” Review Essay for Focal.
“Spectral Connections: Anthropological Engagements with Posthumous Kinship.” To be submitted to Cultural Anthropology.
“Unitary Subjects, Discrepant Bodies: Domestic Violence, Resistance, and the Law in Papua New Guinea.” To be submitted to Signs.
“The Road to Development: Culture, Identity Formation and Millennial Fantasies in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea.” To appear in Roy Wagner: Symbolic Anthropology and the Fate of the New Melanesian Anthropology. (Co-edited by S. Bamford, J. Robbins, J. Shaffner & J. Weiner).
2009
“’Family Trees’ among the Kamea of Papua New Guinea: A Non-Genealogical Approach to Imagining Relatedness.” To appear in S.Bamford & J. Leach (eds) Beyond Kinship: The Genealogical Model Reconsidered. New York: Berghahn Books.
“Pedigrees of Knowledge: Anthropology and the Genealogical Method” In S. Bamford & J. Leach (eds) Beyond Kinship: The Genealogical Model Reconsidered, New York: Berghahn Books.
2007
“Bodies in Transition: An Introduction to Emerging Forms of Bodily Praxis in the Pacific.” In S. Bamford (ed.) Embodying
Modernity and Post-modernity Ritual, Praxis and Social Change in Melanesia. (Carolina Academic Press).
“Unholy Noses.” In S. Bamford (ed.) Embodying Modernity and Post-modernity: Ritual,Praxis and Social Change in Melanesia. (Carolina Academic Press).
2004
“Embodiments of Detachment: Engendering Agency in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea.” In P. Bonnemere (ed.) Unseen Characters, Philadelphia: The University of Pennsylvania Press, p. 34-56.
“Conceiving Relatedness: Non-Substantial Relations among the Kamea of Papua New Guinea.” The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 10 (2), p. 287-306.
2003
Beyond Structure: Reflections on Harriet Whitehead’s Food Rules: Hunting, Sharing and Tabooing Game in Papua New Guinea. Review Forum, JOURNAL OF RELIGIOUS STUDIES, vol. 17 (2) p. 112-117.
2002
“On Being ‘Natural’ in the Rainforest Marketplace: Science, Capitalism, and the Commodification of Biodiversity. SOCIAL ANALYSIS 46 (1) Spring 2002, p. 35-50.
1998
“Introduction: The Grounds of Melanesian Sociality.” In S. Bamford (ed.) Identity, Nature and Culture: Sociality and the Environment in Melanesia. Special Issue, SOCIAL ANALYSIS 42 (3) p. 4-8.
“Humanised Landscapes, Embodied Worlds: Land Use and the Construction of Intergenerational Sociality among the Kamea.” In S. Bamford (ed.) Identity, Nature and Culture: Sociality and the Environment in Melanesia. Special Issue, SOCIAL ANALYSIS 42 (3), p. 28-54.
“To Eat for Another: Taboo and the Elicitation of Bodily Form among the Kamea.” In M. Lambek & A. Strathern (eds) Bodies and Persons: Comparative Perspectives from Africa and Melanesia, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 158-171.
1997
“Introduction” to S. Bamford & J. Robbins (eds.) Fieldwork Revisited: The Changing Context of Ethnographic Practice in the Era of Globalization. Special Issue, ANTHROPOLOGY AND HUMANISM, vol. 22, p. 1-3.
“Beyond the Global: Intimacy and Distance in Contemporary Fieldwork” S. Bamford & J. Robbins (eds.) Fieldwork Revisited: The Changing Context of Ethnographic Practice in the Era of Globalization. Special Issue, ANTHROPOLOGY AND HUMANISM, vol. 22, p. 110-114.
1995
“Fieldwork Revisited: A Preliminary Statement.” Co-authored with J. Robbins ANTHROPOLOGY AND HUMANISM, Vol. 20, p. 1-5.
Graduate Students
People Type:
Research Area:
Research Keywords: Cultural anthropology, kinship studies, sex and gender, embodiment, the anthropology of science.
Research Region: Papua New Guinea, North America, Europe.
