Todd Sanders

Todd Sanders is an Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology. Prior to joining the University of Toronto, he was University Lecturer in Social Anthropology, Member of the Centre of African Studies, and Fellow of Wolfson College at the University of Cambridge. He teaches on anthropological theory and methods, science and its others, expertise, energy and the environment. With an abiding interest in the production and politics of knowledge, his research has ranged from African ritual, witchcraft and the occult to conspiracy theory and discourses of global governance. His current research examines Euro-American knowledge practices surrounding energy and the environment, and has two foci: global environmental change sciences, including the human sciences; and the government of shale gas in England. More on these projects can be found here.

Sanders, who was born and raised in the US, has supervised students from many walks of life. As an enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation (ᏣᎳᎩᎯ  ᎠᏰᎵ), whose academic career began at his local community college, he is committed to fostering students as independent scholars whatever their route into the academy. He is particularly keen to supervise students interested in energy transitions and/or government in a broad sense of the term. 

Education

Ph.D. (London School of Economics)

Awards

Dr. Sanders has received prestigious awards and prizes throughout his career. These include research grants and fellowships from the Economic & Social Research Council (UK), the London School of Economics, Cambridge University, University of London, the Norwegian Research Council, the US National Institute of Mental Health, the Wenner-Gren Foundation and the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Associations

Sanders is a member of the Association of Social Anthropologists of the UK, the American Anthropological Association, and the Association of Indigenous Anthropologists. He is also a member of ᏗᎦᏓᏤᎵᎢ (Digadatseli’i), a diverse collective of Cherokee scholars, writers, and educators – citizens of the Cherokee Nation, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, and the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians – committed to Cherokee language revitalisation and tribal sovereignty.

Publications

Books

2014. Anthropology in Theory: Issues in Epistemology. 2nd Edition, with H.L. Moore. Oxford: Wiley.

2008. Beyond Bodies: Rainmaking and Sense Making in Tanzania. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

2006. Anthropology in Theory: Issues in Epistemology. With H.L. Moore. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

2003. Transparency and Conspiracy: Ethnographies of Suspicion in the New World Order,  with H.G. West. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

2001. Magical Interpretations, Material Realities: Modernity, Witchcraft and the Occult in Postcolonial Africa, with H.L. Moore. New York: Routledge.

1999. Those Who Play with Fire: Gender, Fertility and Transformation in East and Southern Africa, with H.L. Moore & B. Kaare. London: Bloomsbury.

Selected Articles

2024. ‘Retooling US settler-colonialism: the Native’s point of view.' Current Anthropology 65(5), 936-938

2021. (with E.F. Sanders). ‘Openness.’ In: Words and Worlds: A Lexicon for Dark Times (eds) Veena Das and Didier Fassin. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

2020. (with E.F. Sanders). The curve. Social Anthropology/Anthropologie Sociale 28(2), 348-50 (special forum on COVID-19).

2016. ‘The pendulum swings.’ HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 6(1), 493-98.

2015. (with E.F. Hall.) ‘Accountability and the academy: producing knowledge about the human dimensions of climate change.’ Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 21(2), 438-61. (prize-winner from the British Sociological Association)