Scientific Committee
Helen Macdonald
University of Cape Town
Chair of the Scientific Committee
Helen Macdonald is an anthropologist with a BA, BCom and MA from the University of Otago in her native New Zealand, and a PhD from the School of Oriental and African Studies, London. She is currently Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. She is the author of Witchcraft Accusations from Central India: The Fragmented Urn, which unravels the institutions surrounding witchcraft in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh through theoretical and empirical research on witchcraft, violence and modernity in contemporary times. Her other research areas are tuberculosis in South Africa and India, and neuroqueer identities. She is the treasurer of Anthropology Southern Africa and for a number of world bodies—the World Council of Anthropological Associations (WCAA), the International Union for Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (IUAES) and the World Anthropological Union (WAU).
Virginia R. Dominguez
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA
Secretary-General of the IUAES
Virginia R. Dominguez (born in Cuba; Ph.D. 1979 Yale University) is currently Secretary-General of IUAES, President of Anthropologists without Borders-US, and consulting director of the International Forum for U.S. Studies in the U.S. She is also Past President of the American Anthropological Association (2009-2011), past President of the U.S. Society for Cultural Anthropology (1999-2001), and past Editor of American Ethnologist (2001-2006). In addition, she is also currently Gutgsell Professor of Anthropology, Global Studies, Jewish Studies, Middle Eastern Studies, transnational American Studies, and Caribbean Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the U.S.. A political and legal anthropologist, she has written, co-written, edited, or coedited 10 books, including White By Definition: Social Classification in Creole Louisiana (1986, Rutgers U. Press), People As Subject, People As Object: Selfhood and Peoplehood in Contemporary Israel (1989, U. of Wisconsin Press), Global Perspectives on the U.S.: Pro-Americanism, Anti-Americanism and the Discourse In-Between (2017, U. of Illinois Press), and Anthropological Lives: An Introduction to the Profession of Anthropology (2020, Rutgers U. Press). She has previously been a Junior Fellow at Harvard University, an Assistant Professor and Associate Professor at Duke University, a visiting Fulbright Professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Israel)i a Full Professor at the University of California at Santa Cruz, a Salgo Professor at Eotvos Lorand University in Budapest (Hungary),a Simon Professor at the University of Manchester (in the U.K.), a visiting professor at the EHESS in Paris (France), a Mellon Professor at the U. of Cape Town (in South Africa), a Full Professor at the University of Iowa (in the U.S.), and Director of the Iowa Center for International and Comparative Studies.
Felipe Bruno Martins Fernandes
Federal University of Bahia, Brazil
Head of Coucil of Commissions
Full Professor at the Department of Anthropology and Ethnology at the Federal University of Bahia. Coordinator of the Tutoring Program for Indigenous Students. Coordinator of the Center for Feminist Studies on Politics and Education. Head of the IUAES Council of Commissions.
Gregory Lawrence ACCIAIOLI (Greg)
The University of Western Australia
A Vice President of IUAES
Greg Acciaioli is now a senior honorary research fellow at The University of Western Australia, where he lectured in Anthropology and in Asian Studies for 29 years. After receiving his PhD from the Australian National University, he held visiting positions at Vassar College, Columbia University and the University of Arizona before beginning his position at The University of Western Australia in 1991. He has also held visiting research appointments at the Asia Research Institute of Murdoch University, Southeast Asia Research Centre of City University of Hong Kong, the Asia Research Institute of the National University of Singapore, and the Cairns Institute of James Cook University. Besides academic research in Indonesia and Malaysia on such topics as conservation contestations in terrestrial and marine parks, resulting in book chapters and articles in anthropological, conservation biology, and Asian studies journals, as well as the collection Biodiversity and Human Livelihoods in Protected Areas: Case Studies from the Malay Archipelago, he has also undertaken development- and conservation-related research as an applied anthropologist in the region, focussing on the social impacts of agricultural intensification in Indonesia, rural poverty, farmer classification of livestock diseases and other issues. Most recently he has been working on theorising the frontier as a model for understanding the dynamics of the Bugis diaspora in and beyond Indonesia and on the implications of statelessness for the position of the Bajau Laut in Sabah.
Hassen Chaabani
University of Monastir, Tunisia/ Tunisian Association of Anthropology
President of the Tunisian Association of Anthropology
Pr Dr Hassen Chaabani was born the 07 / 09 / 1947 in Tunis (Tunisia). He is Full University Professor in Human Genetics and Anthropology (University of Monastir, Tunisia). He was Director of Department from 1990 to 1996 (Faculty of Pharmacy of Monastir), Director of a Research Unit E12 / CO9 (in Human Biology), from 1996, then Director of a Research Unit entitled: “Biology and Molecular Anthropology applied to Development and Health” (until 2013). Many research works of Master and Doctorate were done under his management. He was Chairman of three International Conferences and has taken part in many other scientific and cultural meetings at the national and international scales. He is the Founder and the President of the “Tunisian Association of Anthropology”. He is the Founder and the Editor-in-Chief of the “International Journal of Modern Anthropology”. He wrote about 45 academic articles and two books. In 2014, he was awarded the honorary title of Professor Emeritus.
Keletso Gaone Setlhabi
University of Botswana
ASnA Member
Dr. Keletso Gaone Setlhabi is a Senior Lecturer in Archaeology at the University of Botswana and teaches archaeology and anthropology. She is an interdisciplinary academic whose research interest is geared towards ‘Anthropology at Home’ and the study of material culture and its role in defining and shaping past and present societies. Her other research interests are museology, digital heritage, cultural heritage and intangible cultural heritage. She is a professional member Anthropology Southern Africa ((ASnA), the International Council of Museums (ICOM), Botswana Association of Archaeology Professionals (BAAP), African Museums and Heritage Restitution (AFRIMUHERE: Secretary General), Association of Critical Heritage Studies (ACHS) and Society of Africanist Archaeologists (SAFA). Her academic qualifications are Doctor of Philosophy, University of Botswana (2010), Masters of Museum Studies, Deakin University (2000), Graduate Diploma (Museum Studies), Deakin University (1999), B.A. Humanities, University of Botswana (1993).
Shabnam Shaik
Rhodes University, South Africa
Member of WAU Congress Organising Committee, Secretary of Anthropology Southern Africa
Carmen Rial
Federal University of Santa Catarina
Former Chair of the World Council of Anthropological Associations (WCAA) and President of the Brazilian Anthropological Association, former co-chair of WAU, former president of the Brazilian Anthropological Association, chair of the Publishing Council of WCAA, co-chair of the IUAES Commission on Publications
Carmen Rial is a full professor at the Federal University of Santa Catarina (1982), is a researcher of the CNPq (National Council of Scientific and Technological Development), she holds the position of chair at the National Institute of Science and Technology for Brazilian Football Studies and directs the Center for Visual Anthropology/Research Group on Urban Anthropology (NAVI/GAUM). She received her doctorate from University of Paris V – Sorbonne (1992). She served as the co-editor-in-chief of ViBrAnt for 12 years and currently holds the position of associate editor at the Annals of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences. Her work focuses on cultural globalization, consumerism and waste, documentary film, transnational migration and sport. Her work explores themes of inequality, power, gender, and national identities. Author, co-author, editor, and co-editor of multiple books, she is perhaps best known for her work on football. Her full CV is accessible at https://lattes.cnpq.br/4874148638654662
Gang Chen
Yunnan University of Finance and Economics
Member of WCAA OC
Dr. CHEN Gang is Emeritus Professor at Yunnan University of Finance and Economics in China. In September 1993, he received a MA in anthropology from Iowa State University in USA. In June 2000, he received a doctoral degree in anthropology from The Ohio State University in USA. He used to work as lecturer in Xi’an Jiaotong University (1983-1990), as an administrative associate at East Asian Studies Center of The Ohio State University (1994-1997), as a teaching assistant in Department of Anthropology at The Ohio State University (1998-2000), as a post-doc research fellow in Department of Human Nutrition at The Ohio State University (2000-2004), as a visiting professor in Department of Sociology and Anthropology of Ohio University (2004-2006). From 2007 to 2023, he was the Chair Professor and Director of Center for Social and Economic Behavior Studies at Yunnan University of Finance and Economics. His chief research interests are in the areas of business anthropology, health and culture, development anthropology and tourism, globalization and culture change. He has received numerous research grants both in USA and in China, and has published quite a large number of academic papers and books both in Chinese and English. Currently, he is the chief editor of International Journal of Business Anthropology, and a member of the Organizing Committee of the World Council of Anthropological Associations.
Gabriel Gyang Darong
Rhodes University, South Africa
Member of WAU Congress Organising Committee, Member of Anthropology Southern Africa Council
Francesca Declich
Università di Urbino Carlo Bo
Elected Member of WCAA
Socio – cultural anthropologist expert in East Africa, the Horn and Mozambique, is director of several ethnographic video documentaries, is Professor at the University of Urbino Carlo Bo. I believe that the African countries of the Western Indian Ocean share many cultural features that were concealed in separate realms of knowledge produced within the ex-colonies. I thus carried out fieldwork in Italian and Anglophone Somalia, Anglophone Tanzania and Lusophone Mozambique studying several features across countries including matriliny, dance, sufi Muslim traditions and women, memories of slavery, domestic slavery and forced migrations. As I think anthropologists can also find valuable information in archives some of my publications cover historical topics especially on gender, ethnogenesis, rituals, slavery and abolition in Somalia and Mozambique. These include recent edited book for Brill ‘Translocal connections across the Indian Ocean. Swahili networks on the move’ (2018) and articles ‘Domesticity as Socio-Cultural Construction: Domestic Slavery, Home and the Quintal in Cabo Delgado (Mozambique)’ in Gender and History (2016) as well as ‘Nassib Bundo and Other Rebel Slaves and Liberti of Gosha. A Reassessment (1835-1906)’ in Africa (2020). Yet, I have published widely on the southern Somali Bantu speakers since when the civil war in Somalia led a large part of the population in diaspora, on resettlement processes, and diasporas.
My ethnographic films address second generations Somali migrants in Tanzania and the US (Coming of Age in Exile – 2011) and secret society’s dances as cultural features kept by descendants of slaves across countries in Africa (The Hidden Guarantee. Identity and Gule Wamkulu between Somalia and Mozambique – winner of the jury price 2009 Museé du Quai de Branly, Paris).
Ahmed Rebai
Centre of Biotechnology of Sfax
Vice President of the Tunisian Association of Anthropology
Dr. Ahmed Rebai received an engineer degree in Population Genetics in 1991 from the Institut National Agronomique de Paris-Grignon, France and his PhD from the same university in 1995 on population and quantitative genetics.
He carried on several studies in genetics anthropology on the North African and MENA populations, since 2003. He is member of the Tunisian Association of Anthropology since 2004, and currently its Vice-president. He is also editor of the International Journal of Modern Anthropology.
He is an expert member/evaluator/consultant in different national and international bodies concerned by African genomics (Data and Biospecimen Access Committee of the H3Africa, since 2016; College of experts of African Research Excellence Fund/UK, since 2020; Consultant for the Science for African Foundation, since 2022).
Dr Rebai was director of the Laboratory of Molecular and Cellular Screening Processes at the Centre of Biotechnology of Sfax (2009-2019). Since 2003 he has been leading a research group working on Human Genomics, including population genomics diversity. Dr. Rebai published more than 250 journal articles.
Dr Rebai was awarded the National Medal (4th category) of The Tunisian Republic in Science and Education in 2006.
Leonardo Schiocchet
University of Vienna
Member of the IUAES Commission on Migration
Leonardo Schiocchet is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Vienna, and a Research Associate at the Institute for Social Anthropology, Austrian Academy of Sciences. He has a PhD in anthropology (Boston University, 2011) and a Habilitation (venia docendi) in Social Anthropology (University
of Vienna, 2022). His work focuses on processes of social belonging, forced migration, ritualization, and religiosity, and he has carried out fieldwork among Arabs in different countries in the Middle East, Europe, and Latin America. His latest publications include: Processos de pertencimento e organização social entre migrantes forçados Árabes (ABA Publicações, 2024, in Portuguese), Living in refuge: Ritualization and religiosity in a Christian and a Muslim Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon (Transcript Publishing, 2022), and Embodied violence and agency in refugee regimes: Anthropological perspectives (with Sabine Bauer-Amin and Maria Six-Hohenbalken; Transcript Publishing, 2022).
Noel B. Salazar
KU Leuven
Co-Chair IUAES Commision of Tourism, Former Secretary-General of IUAES
Noel B. Salazar is Professor in the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, KU Leuven, Belgium. He is editor of the Berghahn Worlds in Motion book series, co-editor of eight edited volumes and ten special issues, and author of Momentous Mobilities (2018), Envisioning Eden (2010) and numerous peer-reviewed articles and book chapters on travel, mobility, heritage, imagination, and endurance. Salazar is executive committee member of the International Council for Philosophy and Human Sciences (CIPSH), past secretary-general of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (IUAES), past steering committee member of the World Anthropological Union (WAU), and past-president of the European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA). In 2013, he was elected as member of the Young Academy of Belgium and in 2021 as honorary member of the MOHU Centre for Advanced Studies in Mobility and the Humanities. Salazar is a frequently asked keynote speaker and regularly appears in the (inter)national media.
Clara Saraiva
Institue of Social Sciences-University of Lisbon
Deputy Chair WCAA; WAU Steering Committee Member
Clara Saraiva (PhD 1999) is a Portuguese social and cultural anthropologist, a Senior Research Fellow and Professor at the Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon (ICS-UL). She was a Visiting Professor at the University of California Berkeley (2013), at Brown University (2001-2002 and 2008) and also Michael Teague Research Fellow at the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown (2001-02 and 2008). She was a researcher at the Institute for Scientific Tropical Research (1988-2015), and at the Center for Research in Anthropology (CRIA) (1998-2017), and an invited Professor at the Department of Anthropology, Universidade Nova de Lisboa (1996-2017). She has also taught at Brown University, University of California Berkeley, Universidade de São Paulo, Unicamp, Pontifica Universidade de São Paulo, Universidade Lusófona de Humanidades e Tecnologias, Université d’Aix-Marseille, amongst others. She works on the anthropology of religion and ritual, religious transnationalism, death, medical anthropology, religion and heritage. She was the Portuguese PI of the HERA European project HERILIGION, analysing the relations between religion and heritage. She has published extensively, and is co-editor (with Peter Jan Margry, Meertens Institute, Amsterdam) of the Lit-Verlag Publisher (Berlin) series on the Ethnology of Religion. She is Deputy-Chair of the World Council of Anthropological Associations (WCAA), Member of the World Anthropological Union (WAU) Steering Committee, past President of APA- Association of Portuguese Anthropology (2014-2023), and past vice-president of SIEF- Society for International Ethnology and Folklore (2013-2017).
Carlos Eduardo Cuinhane
Universidade Eduardo Mondlane
Carlos Cuinhane is an anthropologist and sociologist with a BA in Social Science and BA honour in Sociology from University Eduardo Mondlane, MA in Anthropology (Medial Anthropology) from Nairobi University, Kenya, and Ph.D. in Sociology (Sociology of Health) from Vrije Universiteit, Belgium. He is currently an Auxiliary Professor and researcher at the Department of Sociology, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University Eduardo Mondlane, Mozambique. His area of interest includes sexual and reproductive health, gender, LGBTI and HIV/AIDS, social norms and biomedical norms, malaria, antimicrobial resistance and ONE HEALTH, and nutrition. He is an author of several scientific articles on decision-making on pregnancy, antenatal and breastfeeding practices among HIV positive women, role of men and grandmothers in sexual and reproductive health in Mozambique, as well as acceptability and barriers to malaria elimination.
Michel Bouchard
University of Northern British Columbia
Secretary of WCAA, WAU Steering Committee Member
Professor of Anthropology at the University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC), Dr. Michel Bouchard has worked on issues of ethnicity, nationhood and ethnogenesis for close to three decades. His initial worked looked at issues of identity among French-speakers in Western Canada and then conducted ethnographic research in Estonia and Russia, studying the idea of Russian nationhood and later exploring the historical ethnogenesis of Slavic Russians in medieval Rus as well as the neighboring ancestral Komi. For close to a decade, he has been examining the history of the Métis and [French-]Canadien of North America, exploring Métis ethnogenesis and the emergence of historical Métis communities in various locales. He is currently examining memes, nationalism, and war in Ukraine. Dr. Bouchard is former President of the Canadian Anthropology Society/Société canadienne d’anthropologie.