The implementation of the BODY-POLITICS project in year 1 was impeded by the global Covid pandemic. The project started under strict Covid lockdown rules in the UK in February 2021, and this naturally affected the start of the project, especially travel and recruitment. However, by September 2022 all posts were filled and full team assembled; with regular reading groups, meetings, workshops, writing retreats and other events organised.
The first 36 months of the project have seen the following activities: data collection (153 individuals osteologically examined for WP1 so far, sampled for dietary and mobility isotopes and aDNA where permitted), database work for WP2, WP3, WP4, WP7), publications, analyses, community building, dissemination, and skills training and events. The project so far has 7 peer-reviewed works published and in press, 3 works under review, and multiple in prep.
Collectively, the BODY-POLITICS team has been invited to give three keynote addresses and numerous invited talks, including but not limited to, the universities of Oxford, Nottingham, Lund, Aarhus, Oslo, Cardiff, Aberdeen, Cambridge, Leicester, Linköping, Reykjavik & societies and conferences: Society for Medieval Archaeology, the Heritage Experience Initiative; EAA; NTAG; TAG; and the Gendering the Nordic Past conference.
Distinctions of note include Eriksen's Philip Leverhulme Prize for Archaeology (2022, £100k), Eriksen's selection as a BBC NEW GENERATION THINKER (2023), and her selection as Visiting Professor at Corpus Christi college, Cambridge. All of these are inherently linked with the BODY-POLITICS project; the BBC scheme allowing project results to be shared with thousands of listeners across the UK and beyond. Distinctions also include PhD Researcher Larssen's invited conference keynote, podcast interview, and TV interview disseminating her research, and PhD Researcher Aslesen's invited keynote and multiple publication invitations, both in the first year of their PhDs.
Additional funding: The project/research group has attracted 2 additional PhD students (funded by UoL and AHRC respectively); and 2 additional associated postdocs (1 Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, 1 postdoc funded through the Philip Leverhulme Prize) and a new sister project through PI Eriksen's Philip Leverhulme Prize: 'Making Oddkin in Later Prehistoric Europe'.
