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Anna Bohlin
Senior Lecturer
School of Global StudiesAbout Anna Bohlin
After my Ba (Hon) in Social Anthropology and Politics at SOAS, University of London, I completed a doctoral degree in social anthropology at University of Gothenburg in 2001. Between 1997 and 2008 I was involved in research and teaching in South Africa. I am currently Associate Professor in Social Anthropology and from 2011 I have been a lecturer in the subject at the School of Global Studies.
Areas of interest My research interests include second-hand and re-use, alternative heritage practices, memory and material culture. Previous research has focused on the link between memory and place and its significance for processes of democratisation, citizenship and nation building. I have investigated memory and uses of history within the South African government’s land restitution programme; place, memory and citizenship in urban contexts and the related field of reconciliation, public memory, and other forms of heritage-related activities. Other areas of interest have included participation in cultural resource management as well as the construction and management of "nature" and "culture" within the restoration of watercourses.
Current research
Recently I have been interested in the intersection between things/materials, temporality and sustainability. My current research explores relations to everyday domestic items from a posthumanist perspective. among other things through the project Re:heritage. Circulation and marketization of things with history, Swedish Research Council, 2014-2019, which investigated reuse as an embodied and alternative form of heritage. As part of the project I also collaborated with the Museum of World Culture, Gothenburg for their exhibition Human:Nature, 2019-2021. Currently I examine the social and material configurations that lead to things remaining in households for extended periods of time rather than being divested in the project Staying (with) Things: Alternatives to Circular Living and Consuming, Swedish Research Council 2020-2024. I am part of the leadership group of the Centre for Critical Heritage Studies, a partnership between University College London and University of Gothenburg.
Teaching and tutoring I teach mainly within social anthropology and the Ma Programme in Global Studies on topics such as sustainability and waste, material culture, reconciliation, urban studies, heritage and research methods. I also supervise within the PhD-programme in social anthropology (current doctoral supervision: Proshant Chakraborty and Nanna Rask).
Other positions
President of the Swedish Anthropological Society (SANT)
Member of Editorial Committee, kritisk etnografi: Swedish Journal of Anthropology
-
Using, keeping, wasting: Negotiating material temporalities in the more-than-human
household
Anna Bohlin, Veera Kinnunen
Biannual DASTS conference DASTS24: Elegies of waste, surplus, and excess June 6 – 7, 2024 Danish Technical University, Kongens Lyngby - 2024 -
Antropologerna och arbetsmarknaden:
Rapport från Sveriges antropologförbunds enkätundersökning
2023
Filippa Leitz, Steffen Jöhncke, Anna Bohlin
2024 -
Podd: Remaking of
knowledge
-
The Liveliness of Ordinary Objects: Living with Stuff in the
Anthropocene
Anna Bohlin
Deterritorializing the Future: Heritage in, of and after the Anthropocene - 2020 -
Things on the Loose: The Potential of Objects in Parallel Collections for Future-proofing Post-ethnological
Museums
Anna Bohlin, Carolina Valente Cardoso
The Fifth Biennial Conference of the Association of Critical Heritage Studies (ACHS), 26-30 August, London - 2020 -
Harnessing the Unruly: Anthropological Contributions in Applied Reuse
Projects
Staffan Appelgren, Anna Bohlin
kritisk etnografi: Swedish Journal of Anthropology - 2020 -
‘It will Keep Circulating’: Loving and Letting Go of Things in Swedish Second-hand
Markets
Anna Bohlin
Worldwide Waste: Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies - 2019 -
Commentary: Belonging and Belongings: On Migrant and Nomadic Heritages in and for the
Anthropocene
Rodney Harrison, Staffan Appelgren, Anna Bohlin
The New Nomadic Age Archaeologies of Forced and Undocumented Migration - 2018 -
Caring for things, connecting to humans: Second-hand, reuse and “sustainable
consumerism”
Anna Bohlin
SANT/FAS 2018 Conference: Vulnerabilities 19-21 April, Uppsala - 2018 -
Kreativt återbruk och redesign i offentliga
kontorsmiljöer
Staffan Appelgren, Anna Bohlin, Michael Helander, Michaela Holmdahl, Karin Kindblom, Nina Wolf
2018 -
The liveliness of objects in use: Sensing the soul of second hand
things
Anna Bohlin
Deterritorialising the Future: A symposium on heritage in, of and after the Anthropocene, 14 September, London - 2018 -
The liveliness of ordinary objects: Sensing the soul of second hand
things
Anna Bohlin
Association of Critical Heritage Studies, 4th Biennial Conference, 1-6th September, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China - 2018 -
Second-hand as Living Heritage: Intangible Dimensions of Things with
History
Staffan Appelgren, Anna Bohlin
Davis, P. & Stefano, M. S. (Eds.) The Routledge Companion to Intangible Cultural Heritage, - 2017 -
Unsticky stuff: Affective energies of letting go in circular
economies
Anna Bohlin
AAA 116th Annual Meeting, Washington, Anthropology Matters! - 2017 -
Re-dwelling and urban domesticity: Making place through secondhand
things
Anna Bohlin
13th SIEF Congress, Göttingen, Ways of Dwelling: Crisis, Craft, Creativity - 2017 -
Things with souls: Second-hand finds, care and
temporality
Anna Bohlin
American Anthropoligical Association (AAA) 115th Annual Meeting, Advancing Knowledge, Solving Human Problems. Minneapolis, USA: 16-20 November 2016 - 2016 -
Growing in Motion: The Circulation of Used Things on Second-hand
Markets
Staffan Appelgren, Anna Bohlin
Culture Unbound. Journal of Current Cultural Research - 2015 -
Introduction: Circulating Stuff through Second-hand, Vintage and Retro
Markets
Staffan Appelgren, Anna Bohlin
Culture Unbound. Journal of Current Cultural Research - 2015 -
Growing in Motion: The Circulation of Used Things on Second-hand
Markets
Staffan Appelgren, Anna Bohlin
American Anthropological Association (AAA), Denver, November 17-22 - 2015 -
Neighbours, newcomers and nation-building: Producing neighbourhood as locality in a post-apartheid Cape Town
suburb
Anna Bohlin
Mobilities and neighbourhood belonging in cities and suburbs - 2014 -
Negotiations on Place and Heritage: Public Participation as Social
Drama
Annelie Sjölander Lindqvist, Petra Adolfsson, Anna Bohlin
The International Journal of Interdisciplinary Social and Community Studies - 2014 -
Boundary work, practical knowledge and affect in cross-sector collaboration in Swedish river
restoration
Anna Bohlin
30th EGOS Colloquium, 3-5 July, Rotterdam - 2014 -
Circulating stuff: Morality and affect on the second-hand
market
Staffan Appelgren, Anna Bohlin
SIEF 11th Congress, 30 June - 4 July 2013, Tartu, Estland - 2013 -
Lokalsamhälle och kulturarv: Deltagande och dialogskapande i
praktiken
Annelie Sjölander Lindqvist, Petra Adolfsson, Anna Bohlin
Mångvetenskapliga möten för ett breddat kulturmiljöarbete - 2013 -
Dynamics of inclusion and exclusion in heritage: reflections from a Ph.D.
course
Anna Bohlin, Ingrid Martins Holmberg, Katarina Saltzman, Annelie Sjölander Lindqvist
International journal of heritage studies - 2012 -
Idioms of Return: Homecoming and Heritage in the rebuilding of Protea Village, Cape
Town
Anna Bohlin
African Studies - 2011 -
Delaktighetens landskap. Tillgänglighet och inflytande inom
kulturarvssektorn
Annelie Sjölander-Lindqvist, Anna Bohlin, Petra Adolfsson
2010 -
Introduction
Cherryl Walker, Anna Bohlin, Ruth Hall, Thembela Kepe
Land, Memory, Reconstruction, and Justice: Perspectives on Land Claims in South Africa, red. C. Walker, A. Bohlin, R. Hall & T. Kepe - 2010 -
Choosing cash over land in Kalk Bay and Knysna: The time factor in urban land
claims
Anna Bohlin
Land, Memory, Reconstruction, and Justice: Perspectives on Land Claims in South Africa, red. C. Walker, A. Bohlin, R. Hall & T. Kepe - 2010 -
Land, Memory, Reconstruction, and Justice: Perspectives on Land Claims in South
Africa
Cherryl Walker, Anna Bohlin, Ruth Hall, Kepe Thembela
2010 -
Building bridges? Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden and Protea Village, Cape
Town
Anna Bohlin
Bulletin för trädgårdshistorisk forskning - 2009 -
A price on the past: Cash as compensation in South African land
restitution
Anna Bohlin
Fragile Freedom: South Africa's Democracy since 1994, eds G Cuthbertson & A. Jeeves - 2008 -
Challenging heritage in the South African
countryside
Anna Bohlin
Cultural Heritages as Reflexive Traditions (red. U. Kockel & M. Nic Craith) - 2007 -
Claiming land and making memory: Engaging with the past in land
restitution
Anna Bohlin
History Making and Present Day Politics: The Meaning of Collective Memory in South Africa (red. H.E. Stolte) - 2007 -
Shifting terrains of citizenship: Negotiating local, national and global belonging in South African land
restitution
Anna Bohlin
Local Citizenship, M. Andrén (red.) - 2007 -
In the Eyes of the Sea: Memories of Place and Displacement in a South African Fishing
Town
Anna Bohlin
2007 -
Minne, glömska och produktionen av lokalitet i det nya
Sydafrika
Anna Bohlin
Tidsskriftet Antropologi - 2006 -
A Price on the Past: Cash as Compensation in South African Land
Restitution
Anna Bohlin
Canadian Journal of African Studies - 2004 -
Places of longing and belonging: Memories of the Group Area Proclamation of a South African fishing
village
Anna Bohlin
Contested landscapes: Movement, exile and place - 2001 -
In the Eyes of the Sea. Memories of Place and Displacement in a South African Fishing
Town
Anna Bohlin
2001 -
The politics of locality: Memories of District Six in Cape
Town
Anna Bohlin
Locality and belonging - 1998