The preparatory phase of reading and planning of fieldwork was completed in months 1-7. A planning workshop was held over 2 days in May 2017, involving the team and the Advisory Committee. Months 7-18 were focussed on carrying out field research for all projects. The comparative framework and discussions of the AGATM programme were fostered through the visits of the PI to three of the projects and used as opportunities for presenting preliminary research finding to local academic audiences.
In months 19-36 (July 2018-December 2019), work mainly focused on analysis of research materials, writing, planning and carrying out dissemination activities, as well as further fieldwork. PI visited Botswana project in Nov 2018. Ongoing activities included transcription of materials; preliminary analysis of field-notes and writing of draft chapters/papers. Full team meetings to foster the comparative framework of AGATM work, and for consolidation, discussion and planning of ongoing writing and dissemination events were held approximately every month.
Overview of results (dissemination highlights): A joint article was by team was published in Anthropology of this Century, May 2019. Magee delivered a paper on the Virginia project at ASA annual conference in Sept 2018; Chiu and Carsten delivered presentations at workshop on ‘The Invisible Within’ at University of Central Lancashire in Nov 2018; Carsten and Reece participated in round table discussion of Botswana project at University of Cape Town in Nov 2018; Carsten, Chiu, Papadaki, and Reece presented papers on all AGATM projects in May 2019 at a workshop at the University of Aegean. Reece organised panel on ‘Intimacy, marriage and social change’ at the European Conference for African Studies in Edinburgh in June 2019, and delivered a paper. Carsten delivered a seminar on Penang project at Monash University, KL in March 2019, and a training event for students and staff at University Sains Malaysia in April 2019, and a seminar on her Penang project at UCL in October 2019. Writing of papers and organisation for our main workshop/conference’ was completed and held in Edinburgh Sept 2019. Work for planned exhibition and associated catalogue and website, ‘An Anthropology of Weddings: 5 places, 50 Objects’, was completed, and exhibition displayed in Edinburgh Central Library during Sept 2019 with an associated on-line catalogue, and a panel on AGATM research was presented by AGATM team at AAA Annual Meetings in Vancouver in Nov 2019. From January 2020 to June 2022, work concentrated on preparation of our co-edited volume, monographs and journal articles. Carsten’s 'Imagining and living new worlds: The dynamics of kinship in contexts of mobility and migration', appeared in Ethnography in 2020; Reece’s article, ‘Telling Families, Telling Aids’ was published in Ethnos in 2021. Our collective edited volume, Marriage in Past, Present and Future Tense, was published by UCL Press, open access, in Sept 2021. Papadaki’s film, ‘Family Time’ was completed and shown at a University of the Aegean anthropology seminar in November 2020, and shown with a round table discussion at the RAI Film Festival in March 2021. Reece’s monograph, Pandemic Kinship: Families, Intervention, and Social Change in Botswana’s Time of Aids was published by Cambridge University Press in June 2022. Chiu’s monograph was accepted for publication with Berghahn to appear in 2023. We held workshops at University of Bayreuth (May 2022) and University of Thessaloniki (June 2022). Carsten conducted a final research visit to Penang in May-June 2022, and delivered a public talk on her research at the Penang Institute in June 2022.
Overall, we have maximised dissemination and publication activities to bring our work to as wide an audience as possible. Our research, using a combination of interdisciplinary methodological approaches and maximising collaborative work throughout, has broken new ground for the anthropology of kinship. Emphasising the ethical, political, affective, temporal and imaginative qualities of marriage, our exhibition, film, talks and publications have taken discussions into new comparative and theoretical directions. Concentrating on the production of high-quality monographs, we expect our work to have continued impact in ensuing years.
