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Matthew Alexander Halkes Carey

  • Øster Farimagsgade 5, Opgang E

    1353 København V

Personal profile

Short presentation

Primary Research Areas

The main thrust of my research revolves around Tachelhit-Berber speaking communities in Southern Morocco, principally the Central High Atlas mountains. I have also conducted some fieldwork in Odessa, Ukraine.

Thematic Interests and Objectives

My research can be roughly divided into three main streams:

1) My early work focused on questions of political organisation, institutionality and anarchism. The main thrust of this work was to suggest that real-world anarchism is best thought of not as a deliberate political strategy, but as an emergent product of personal dispositions. This is a pragmatic, rather than an ideological view of anarchy. I also sought to contribute to theoretical understanding of the institution.

2) My postdoctoral research explored subjectivity, intimacy and emotions in the Moroccan High Atlas,addressing topics such as pre-marital sexuality, mental illness, domestic violence, infant mortality and religious change. This work stressed the socially productive nature of doubt and ambiguity.

3) Most recently, I have turned my attention to lying and mistrust, which I explore in a forthcoming book. Writing against the tidal wave of trust literature, in which mistrust is seen as a purely corrosive phenomenon that eats away at social ties, I seek to show how mistrust in fact gives rise to particular social forms and practices that are both interesting and, at times, admirable.

Dissemination

I am one of the principle translators of French anthropology into English, having translated, inter alia, Philippe Descola, Carlo Severi and Jeanne Favret-Saada. In my research, publications and other activities, I seek to build bridges between the different national traditions.

Research Groups

I am currently coordinator of the Religion and Subjectivity research group, as well as a member of the Conflict, Power and Politics group.

Other Roles

I am a member of the editorial boards of the journals HAU and Terrain.

Selected Publications

2012. “'The Rules' in Morocco: Pragmatic Approaches to Flirtation and Lying”, HAU 2(2)

2012. “La Folie Mise en Marge : genre et aliénation chez les Berbères du Maroc”, Cahier d’Etudes Africaines 205. pp. 217-236

2013. “Apolitical ‘Islamisation’ ? on the limits of religiosity in montane Morocco”, in M. Marsden and K. Retsikas (eds.)Articulating Islam: Anthropological Approaches to Muslim Worlds. Springer Press. pp. 193-208.

CV

Date of Birth: 28/03/1981

Education:

2003-2008 - PhD in Social Anthropology. University of Cambridge, UK. Ephemeral Institutions : Practical Anarchy in the Moroccan High Atlas, supervised by Dr. Yael Navaro-Yashin

2002-2003 - MPhil in Social Anthropology. University of Cambridge, UK. Negotiating Politics: the sources and contexts of conceptual change in Morocco

1998-2001 - BA in Social Anthropology. London School of Economics, UK. (First Class Honours)

Current Position: 

Since 2014 - Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen

Previous Positions:

09.2012 – 08.2013 - Visiting Professor, Collège de France, Paris

01.2011 – 12.2013 - External lecturer, Department of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen

01.2012 – 09.2012 - Teaching Fellow. Department of Anthropology, University College London, UK.

2007-2009 - Postdoctoral Researcher. Institut Marcel Mauss, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris

Keywords

  • Faculty of Social Sciences
  • Politics
  • Anarchism
  • Lying
  • Mistrust
  • Sexuality