Sarah Edgcumbe
Sarah Edgcumbe
QUALIFICATIONS
2025 Ph.D., International Relations, University of St Andrews
2019 MA., Conflict Studies and Human Rights, Utrecht University
2019 MA., Refugee Protection and Forced Migration Studies, Refugee Law Initiative, University of London
2005 B.A., Human Rights and Criminal Justice, University of Wolverhampton
PRINCIPAL RESEARCH INTERESTS
War, displacement and minorities; stigma; humanitarian aid; peacebuilding and power; everyday resistance; identity and nationalism; the everyday.
RESEARCH PROFILE
My doctoral research explored Roma and Gypsy experiences of conflict and neoliberal peace in Kosovo and Iraq, comparing these experiences to everyday conceptualisations of peace imagined by those communities. Prior to this, I worked on research which focused on displacement and humanitarian provision in Iraq and Syria, as well as conceptualisation of patriarchy, power, and resistance among rural women in Afghanistan.
I am currently working with Dr Martin Fotta on the ‘Romani Family in the Age of War’ project, investigating how kinship relations are formed, maintained, and mobilised during wars. My geographic focus is the Middle East (Iraq, Syria, Lebanon).
Edited Volumes and Special Issues
I am currently working on a book manuscript which is under contract with Liverpool University Press. The book presents a comparative case study of Iraq and Kosovo, examining the contrast between how populations perceived by others as “Gypsies” and Roma experience post-war liberal peace within their respective countries, compared to how they conceptualise peace at the everyday level. In exploring everyday conceptualisations of peace provided by research participants, the book illuminates multilayered violences within the post-war landscapes of Iraq and Kosovo, which target stigmatised populations disproportionately, and distinctly. Each empirical chapter is thematically reflective of the most common everyday indicators of peace selected by research participants.
Under contract: Iraqi Minorities and Social Movements: Erasures, Fragmentation, and Discrimination, Routledge Advances in Minority Studies, Routledge, (co-editor Dr Jeffrey Murer).
Journal Articles
2024 ‘Reconceptualising Peace, Resisting Stigma: The Case of Hosta in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq’, Kurdish Studies Journal, 2(2), pp182-209.
2021 ‘Rural Women in the Balkh and Herat Provinces of Afghanistan: Simultaneous Resistance to, and Reproduction of, Patriarchal Power Structures’, Journal of Resistance Studies, 7(1), pp10-45.
Book Chapters
2024 Humanitarian Protection and the Politics of Labelling: The Case of Displaced Iraqi and Syrian Roma, Ch. 8 in Blasco. P, Sarafian. I, and Roman. R. (eds), Gender and Violence in Romani and Traveller Lives: Methods, Ethics, and Dilemmas, Routledge.
Ongoing Projects and Grants
2026 Romani Family in an Age of War. ERC 2024 Action grant, Horizon Europe, European Commission 101170655; 09/01/2025 – 08/31/2030
Research Associate.
Editorial Work
2024–2026 Social Anthropology/Anthropologie Sociale, Editor
Ongoing Romano Džaniben, Editorial Board
Board Memberships
Ongoing Prague Forum for Romani Histories, Member of the Steering Committee
2017–2018 Member of the Scientific Committee of the 15th biennial conference of the European Association of Social Anthropologists
External Reviewing
Project Evaluation: Wenner Gren Foundation, Project proposal evaluation (2021–2023); ERC (Remote Expert Referee)
Book Proposal and Manuscript Evaluation: Berghahn Books; Bristol University Press; CEU Press; Indiana University Press; Karolinum; Palgrave Macmillan, Routledge
Journal Articles Manuscript Review: American Ethnologist; Anthropological Journal of European Cultures; ANUAC: Journal of Associazione Nazionale Universitaria degli Antropologi Culturali; Cargo: Journal for Cultural and Social Anthropology; Český lid; Current Anthropology; Economy and Society; Economic Anthropology; Ethnic and Racial Studies; European History Quarterly; Focaal – Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology; History and Anthropology; Irish Journal of Sociology; Journal of Social History; Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute; Journal of Gypsy Studies; Journal of Cultural Economy; Journal of Transatlantic Studies; Paideuma: Mitteilungen zur Kulturkunde; Revista de Antropologia; Religio: Revue proreligionistiku; Romano Džaniben; Romani Studies; Social Anthropology/ Anthropologie Sociale; Social Inclusion; Slovenský Národopis; S.I.M.O.N. - Shoah: Intervention. Methods. Documentation; Sociologický časopis-Czech Sociological Review; Vibrant: Virtual Brazilian Anthropology
Doctoral Thesis Examination: Faculty of Humanities, Charles University; Postgraduate Program in Law, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro; Postgraduate Program in Anthropology, Federal University of Minas Gerais
Teaching Experience
2019–2020 Visiting Professor in Social and Cultural Anthropology, Department of Anthropology, Faculty of Humanities, Charles University, Prague.
2017–2019 Lecturer, Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Goethe University Frankfurt.
2014–2015 Lecturer in Social Anthropology, School of Anthropology and Conservation, University of Kent, United Kingdom.
Invited Talks, Public Lectures or Roundtables
2023 June, 10. Closing roundtable – On the Precarity of Our Disciplines: Possible Ways Forward. SIEF2023 16th Congress, Brno, Czechia. (co-panelists Brković, Čarna – Norum, Roger – Saraiva, Clara)
April, 3. Romanies of the South Atlantic: Cigano (Gypsy) circulation between Portugal, Brazil, Cape Verde and Angola (XVII and XVIII c.), Forum Frühe Neuzeit, HistorischesSeminar, University of Zurich
2022 January, 21. Relational Racialisation of Romanies across the Lusophone South Atlantic. Mobilités et contacts dans les mondes romani, EHESS, Paris
2020 January, 25. Princíp domácnosti a námedzná práca: O ekonomickej integrácii Calónov v Brazílii a o možnostiach komparatívnej analýzy [Householding Principle and Waged Labour: On the Economic Integration of the Calon in Brazil and the Possibilities of Comparative Analysis]. Ladislav Holý Lecture, Invited annual lecture of the Czech Association for Social Anthropology, Prague
2017 March, 31. Vivendo no presente: como as trocas entre os Ciganos Calon da Bahia
multiplicam eventos [Living in the Present: How Exchanges between the Calon Gypsies of Bahia bring about a multiplication of events. Núcleo de Pesquisas em Cultura e Economia (NuCEC), UFRJ, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Conference and Workshop Organisation
2024 October, 16. Excluded in Exile: Supporting Romani Refugees in Times of Crisis. Conference, Vila Lanna, Prague. (co-organiser Hajská, Markéta)
2023 October, 6–8. Solidarity. 7th Biennial Conference of the Czech Association of Social Anthropologists, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University Prague. (co-organisers Grygar, Jakub – Zandlová, Markéta – Stehlíková, Barbora – Hrůzová Průchová, Andrea – Hrešanová, Ema – Testa, Alessandro – Lehečka, Michal)
2021 June, 22. Romani Studies in the Age of Covid-19: Ethics, Methods, Engagement and the Future. Workshop, Online. (co-convenor Gay y Blasco, Paloma)
2013 November, 28–29. Lost in Things. Questioning Functions and Meanings of the Material World. Conference, Goethe Universität Frankfurt am Main, Germany. (co-organisers Hahn, Hans Peter – Stockhammer, Philipp W.)
2012 September, 20–23. The Two Sides of the Coin: Gypsy Economies between the State and the Market. Exploratory Workshop of the European Science Foundation (EW11-231). (co-organisers Brazzabeni, Micol – Hrustič, Tomáš)
