I am a social anthropologist at The University of Edinburgh working at the intersection of education and ethics. My research explores how experience-based education informs how students view equality, democracy, and social responsibility in local and global relationships. By using the body as an analytic, I assess how embodied activities in Norwegian folk high school education shape ethical questions relating to consumer behavior, development, and religious practice. I use multi-modal and co-creative methods, exploring the role photography, film, and music can play in illuminating ethnographic work.
I hold an undergraduate degree in communication studies from Temple University in Philadelphia, PA, which has informed how I use the technical skills I gained there in sound production, photography, and broadcast journalism in my current ethnographic practice. After graduation, I taught in high schools, universities, and in various community learning programs in the area, while earning a master of theological and cultural anthropology at Eastern University in 2018. My most recent teaching posts have included teaching and lecturing at The School of Social and Political Science and the Edinburgh Futures Institute, both at The University of Edinburgh, where I’ve taught Social Anthropology 1B: Anthropology Matters; People First: The Anthropology of Development (masters course, online); Anthropology and Environment (online); Climate Change and Social Life, and Religious Identity Through Story.
I also write, produce, perform, film, and photograph in various capacities, but mostly with my band Cape Wrath.
If you’d like to get in touch, please email me at: jamiglisson@gmail.com.
Photo by Buddy Szczesniak.