About David Shankland
I am a Social Anthropologist, and have specialised on looking at social change and religion in Turkey for many years. It has been a source of fascination for me to see how the country has changed and developed over this time. I have also conducted a micro-study of the way that migrants from an Alevi village in Turkey have integrated into German society. As my career has developed, I have equally been curious as to how anthropology came to be created as a modern discipline, something that my job as the Director of the Royal Anthropological Institute gives me endless possibilities of exploring.
George Square and the Adam Ferguson Building, Edinburgh University, Scotland
Darwin College, University of Cambridge,
England
The University of Hacettepe, Ankara, Turkey
The University of Bilkent, Ankara, Turkey
The University of Wales, Lampter, Wales
The University College London, England
The Logo of the EASA
David Shankland at Trinity College, Dublin
I studied Social Anthropology at the University of Edinburgh from 1982 to 1986, during the course of which I conducted field research in the High Atlas Mountains for my master’s dissertation in the valley of Aït Bouguemez.
Atlas Mountains, Aït Bouguemez, Morocco
From there in 1986, I moved to the University of Cambridge, supported by an ESRC Anglo-French PhD Studentship, and supervised by Ernest Gellner. The French part of the studentship was tenured at the Laboratoire d'ethnologie et de sociologie comparative, Paris X (Nanterre), working with Altan Gokalp.
Ernest Gellner
For my PhD dissertation ‘Alevi and Sunni in rural Turkey: diverse paths of change’, I lived for some twelve months in an Alevi village in Anatolia between 1988-1990, during which time I was successively also a researcher at Hacettepe University, and a lecturer at the Middle East Technical University.
An Alevi Village, Munzur Valley, Turkey
In 1992, I returned to Ankara having been appointed Assistant and Acting Director of the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara, during which time I was also visiting lecturer at the University of Bilkent. At this point, I began research into the local understanding of the remains of the past, becoming a member of the Çatalhöyük dig team and living in Küçükköy, the village next to the excavation. This helped me to understand subsequently the differences in practice between anthropologists and archaeologists, and how to approach the emergence of modern disciplinary boundaries within anthropology.
Çatalhöyük, Konya, Turkey
In 1995, I became lecturer, then senior lecturer at the University of Wales Lampeter. In 2000, I became a Humboldt Fellow, at the University of Bamberg, working with Klaus Kreiser, examining patterns of social mobility and migration into Germany. In 2002, I was appointed Senior Lecturer then Reader at Bristol University, where I was one of a group of lecturers who helped to refound anthropology at the university, based initially in Sociology, and then in the Department of Archaeology (now the Department of Anthropology and Archaeology).
Klaus Kreiser
In 2010, I became the Director of the Royal Anthropological Institute, and in 2015 Honorary Professor (Anthropology) at University College London. In 2022, I was Visiting Professor at the Anthropology Department in the University of Vienna, and in 2023, Senior Researcher at the IFK Vienna (the Internationales Forschungszentrum Kulturwissenschaften Vienna) in order to examine questions of the reformulation and recognition of the Alevi community in Austria.
The University of Vienna, Austria
I have held various positions in learned societies, including Treasurer of the European Association of Social Anthropologists, convenor of the ASA Annual conference at Bristol on Anthropology and Archaeology, Treasurer of the RAI, Recorder and President of the Anthropology and Archaeology Section H of the British Association of the Advancement of Science, Chairman of the Education Commission of the IUAES, and Chairman of the Anglo-Turkish Society.
I continue to lecture widely on questions to do with modern Turkey, the Alevis and the reformulation of their religious practice, and on various historical figures in the formation of modern anthropology, including Westermarck, FW Hasluck, M Hasluck, Evans-Pritchard, Gellner, and Stirling.
The University of Bristol, Bristol, England
David Shankland at a meeting of the Anglo Turkish Society of Britain
My Family
Despite my work orientated life, I am very thankful to my supportive family.
We consist of myself; my wife, AyÅŸegül Anne Shankland; and our son, Robert Shankland; as well as our dog, Aria.
