Senior Research Fellow in Social Anthropology, UCL
I am a social anthropologist specialising in the dynamics of fiscal systems and the sociality of tax, with a particular emphasis on the Andean region, where I have undertaken long-term fieldwork in a rural Quechua-speaking community, as well as in the peri-urban zones of Cochabamba city. In 2022 I commenced my UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship project, ‘The Sociality of Tax: A Multiperspective Study of Fiscal Relations (SocTax)’. The project investigates fiscal regimes and cultures in an anthropological fashion comparing Bolivia, the UK, and Sweden, and exploring the types of social relations that paying and not paying tax produce in different ethnographic settings. I'm a member of the Anthropology of Tax network (tax-anthro.net), founder and convenor of EASA's Anthropology of Tax Network, and affiliate of UCL's Centre for Capitalism.
I am also a member of the ERC-funded project 'Anthropologies of Extortion', working as part of an international groups of scholars to map and analyse cultures of extortion. In 2017 I was awarded the Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship for my project 'Becoming a Taxpayer: Fiscal Expansion and Economic Subjectivities in Bolivia'. Before that I worked as a Teaching Fellow in the Anthropology department at UCL 2016/17. I received my Ph.D. in Anthropology from the London School of Economics (ESRC-funded) in 2014, MSc (Research) from London School of Economics (ESRC-funded) in 2007, and MA (hons) in Social Anthropology from the University of Edinburgh in 2005.
Taxes aren’t just about money – they shape how we think about each other
Mar 07, 2024 07:40 am UTC| Insights & Views Economy
Taxes raising them, cutting them, creating them are useful political tools in an election year (as Chancellor Jeremy Hunts decision to cut national insurance shows). But they are always pertinent, even if some people...
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