Humanitarian Ethics
University of Exeter, University of Istanbul, and the Turkish research council (Tübitak)
Profile

Dr Geoffrey Hughes
Lecturer (Anthropology)
Amory B304
Research interests
Jordan and the Middle East; Kinship; Personhood; Emotion and Affect; Marriage; Gender; The Anthropology of Islam; Political Economy; The State; Institutions; Infrastructure; Science and Technology Studies
Current and Previous Research Projects:
'The Value of Moderation: Language, Emotion, and Islam in Jordan' (British Academy and Council for British Research in the Levant, 2019)
'Nation and Agnation: Kinship, Conflict and Social Control in Contemporary Jordan' (National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Centre of Oriental Research, 2017)
'The Politics of Envy: Kinship, State and the Management of Inequality in Jordan' (London School of Economics, 2016)
'Affection and Mercy: Kinship, State and the Management of Marriage in Contemporary Jordan' (University of Michigan, 2013)
'Managing Marriage: Kinship and Bureaucracy in Contemporary Jordan' (National Science Foundation and the University of Michigan, 2011-2012)
Research supervision
I am open to supervising PhD students interested in the following topics, preferably with an area studies focus on the Middle East:
- Kinship and Gender
- Emotions and Affect
- Social Media
- State- and Institution-Formation
- Critical Legal Anthropology
- Islam
Modules taught
- ANT1005 - Introduction to Social Anthropology: Exploring Cultural Diversity
- ANT2016 - Anthropology of the State
- ANT2017 - Anthropology of Islam
- ANT2041 - How Organisations Work: Ethnography in Institutions
Biography
I hail from the US, where I studied at Reed College (BA in Anthropology, 2006) before joining the Peace Corps and serving for two years as a schoolteacher in a rural village in southern Jordan. While I don't know how much good I did my first students, I quickly fell in love with Jordan and the Arabic language and became determined to learn more. I returned to the US to study anthropology at the University of Michigan with a focus on Jordan and the broader Middle East, earning my MA in 2011 and my PhD in 2015. I subsequently joined the Department of Anthropology at the London School of Economics, where I was a fellow for three years, before beginning a lectureship at the University of Exeter in 2018. I travel to Jordan regularly, where I have now conducted over two years of ethnographic fieldwork with the support of the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities and, more recently, the British Academy.