This is me. I’m also an anthropologist who writes about neoliberal subjectivities, identity, vulnerability, education, and social justice. I use arts-based methods, especially theatre, to both tell and generate ethnographic stories.

Recently a student asked me to artistically represent ‘my ideal university space’ as part of her research project. I decided to draw an image from a workshop I taught at SOAS on how to use theatre as a research method:

It’s called Lifeworlds of Leadership, and you can find it here.

I have also written a monograph (soon to be published by Routledge) about social entrepreneurs of education in Delhi, also called Lifeworlds of Leadership: Entrepreneurial Subjectivities in Indian Education, which you can learn more about here.

I love collective writing projects, and I’ve written about them here.

If you want to read more of my traditional ethnographic writing, you can find some here.

I also write ethnographic plays, which I usually perform (and/or co-write) with collaborators, such as Priyanka Borpujari, who’s also a member of the Centre for Creative Ethnography.

‘Hey! Give me back my saviour complex’ is one of my plays, which was published in an anthology of creative anthropologies, which you can find here.

I’m also co-leading a large new theatre project as part of the EASA Creative Anthropologies Network, if you want to get involved, email me at: thisisrichthornton@gmail.com