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	Tel:  +44 20 7679 5567 E-mail: jerome.lewis@ucl.ac.uk Office hours: Term 1 Tuesdays 4-5pm

Lecturer in Social Anthropology

Director of Cultures of Sustainability, UCL Environment Institute
Undergraduate Admissions Tutor, Department of Anthropology
Web and Publicity Committee chair, Department of Anthropology

PhD, Anthropology
London School of Economics and Political Science 2002

Publications

General Interests

• Hunter-gatherer and former hunter-gatherer societies
• Egalitarian politics
• Play, ritual and religion
• Language, dance and music
• Indigenous rights, mapping and representation
• Extreme Citizen Science and new participatory research methodologies

Jerome Lewis began working with Pygmy hunter-gatherers and former hunter-gatherers in Rwanda in 1993. This led to work on the impact of the genocide on Rwanda’s Twa Pygmies. Since 1994 he has worked with Mbendjele Pygmies in Congo-Brazzaville researching child socialisation, play and religion; egalitarian politics and gender relations; and language, music and dance. Studying the impact of global forces on many Pygmy groups across the Congo Basin has led to research into discrimination, economic and legal marginalisation, human rights abuses, and to applied research supporting conservation efforts by forest people and supporting them to better represent themselves to outsiders. This has resulted in the development of tools (software and hardware) to scientifically describe specific problems (resource damage in logging, illegal logging and poaching) so that ecosystem managers can better take them into account.

Baka from Mang-Kako map sacred moabi tree 2007		Baka youth maps illegally felled trees, Cameroon 2007

He has previously taught at the London School of Economics (2003-2007). With Dr Luke Freeman he has spent several years developing digital tools for teaching undergraduate anthropology. The course won a commendation from the Higher Education Academy (2005). A resource he designed used text and film to provide students with problems to analyze that simulated the increasing levels of information an anthropologist would have in the field. It can be seen and used here.

He is a regular lecturer at the Radical Anthropology Group www.radicalanthropologygroup.org

And a member of the Royal Anthropological Institute
http://www.therai.org.uk

Indicators of esteem

Co-Director of the Environment Institute, UCL, and Director of the ‘Cultures of Sustainability’ programme within the Institute
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/environment-institute/

Associate Editor of 'Before Farming: the archaeology and anthropology of hunter-gatherers'
http://www.waspjournals.com/journals/beforefarming

Scientific Advisor to the Chirac Foundation
http://www.fondationchirac.eu/en

Scientific Advisor to the Forest Trust
http://www.tft-forests.org

Social Advisor to the ATIBT (Association Technique Internationale des Bois Tropicaux)
http://www.atibt.com

Special Adviser and founding member of Foyer Frédéric Assistance Bayaka (FFAB), a Congolese NGO developing alternative educational curricula, processes and educational establishments for semi-nomadic hunter-gatherer communities in Northern Congo.

Awards

2010: Cuthbert Peek Award of the Royal Geographical Society and Institute of British Geographers for using GIS to empower indigenous communities.

2008: Dubai International Award for Best Practice for Involving Indingenous People in Forest Management Decision Making Programme of Tropical Forest Trust.

2007: Technology Museum Laureate for Indingenous Voices Programme of Tropical Forest Trust.

2007: "Technology of the month" in Technologies for Conservation and Development.

2006: Environmental Innovation Award winner (Timber Trade Journal) for CIEarth software.

2005: Special commendation in the national 'E-tutor of the Year' competition, by the Times Higher Education Supplement and the Higher Education Academy.

1998-9: Alfred Gell Memorial Scholarship, LSE.

1992: Michael Sallnow Prize, LSE.

1992: Hocart Essay Prize, Royal Anthropological Institute.

Research groups

Scientific Committee Member for the 'International Conference on hunter-gatherers of the Congo Basin Conference' in Montpellier
http://www.cefe.cnrs.fr/ibc/Conference/ICCBHG.htm

Co-organiser of the 'Social Origins of Language: Early Society, Communication, Narrative and Structure' workshop at UCL 14th - 17th Feb, 2011

Human Ecology Research Group, Department of Anthropology, UCL
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/anthropology/research/herg.htm

Sustainability, Environment and the Culture of Materials Research Group, Department of Anthropology, UCL
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/anthropology/research/research_reading_groups/sem

Extreme Citizen Science Research Group, Chorley Institute, UCL
(forthcoming)

Research projects

2011-2012: Developing geographic information systems for non-literate users. ESRI (the leading GIS manufacturers in the world - products include ArcInfo and ArcGIS) have committed $150,000 to bring me to work with their prototype laboratory in California on developing a stand alone GIS application for use by non-literate users - focusing on hunter-gatherers in the Congo Basin involved in ‘extreme’ citizen science.

2011-2013: Monitoring poaching and illegal hunting. Developing mapping software for non-literate hunter-gatherers to identify and map illegal hunting activities. ExCiteS UCL, First Peoples Worldwide, Wildlife Conservation Society and Congolaise Industriel de Bois.

2005- Ongoing: Exterme Citizen Science. Making tools and developing methodologies for scientifically valid data collection to be done by non-literate people. Together with Helveta, a UK firm specialising in traceability and monitoring software, I designed prize-winning icon-driven mapping software for palm-top GPS units to enable non-literate hunter-gatherers to map key resources they want to protect from damage by loggers. The system is now being used in Cameroon, Central African Republic and Nigeria and will soon be used in Gabon. Interest has been expressed for work in Ethiopia and Indonesia.
http://corporate.helveta.com/products.html?pgid=94

2008- 2011: Creation of Centre for Social Excellence based in Younde, Cameroon. A centre for the intensive teaching of graduates from the Congo Basin in the social aspects of forestry, including techniques for involving forest people in mapping and management decision-making processes. We also run short courses for employees of forestry companies. With Tropical Forest Trust, Chirac Foundation and Albert II Monaco Foundation. 1.2 million Euros
http://www.tft-forests.org/projects/project.asp?pr=8
http://www.atibt.com/images/stories/telechargements/formation_ces_octobre.pdf

2005- 2011: Radio Biso na Biso. We have established a community radio station covering over 15,000 square kilometres for forest people, including hunter-gatherers, to discuss and share in their own languages their interests and concerns. It enables them to make their own radio programmes and provide support to health and education services. With the Tropical Forest Trust and Chirac Foundation. 700,000 Euro.
http://www.tft-forests.org/projects/project.asp?pr=9
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=0vKZVETgJYk

2007- 2011: Monitoring illegal logging and mapping key resources of forest people in south eastern Cameroon. We designed software accessible to non-literate people from 15 communities of five different ethnic groups so they can collect the data themselves. With the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Forest Peoples Programme and Helveta. (See BBC news items and Lewis 2007). £170,000.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/news/2008/01/200811_jmd_baka_wt.shtml
http://www.alertnet.org/thefacts/reliefresources/120393541550
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7218078.stm
http://corporate.helveta.com/uploads/news/20100107015150-Helveta%20Cameroon%20CaseStudy_2009.pdf

2008- 2010: Developing regional guidelines for interpreting the Forest Stewardship Council Principles and Criteria for the Congo Basin. Advising the ATIBT (Association Technique Internationale des Bois Tropicaux) and GTZ (German Development Cooperation).
http://www.atibt.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=46&Itemid=28

2006- 2008: Defining Free, prior and Informed Consent in the Context of Forestry Operations in the Congo Basin. An examination of how Swiss forestry companies achieve free, prior and informed consent from local people living in the forests they exploit has resulted in a practical guide and policy recommendations. With the Swiss Ministry for Economic Affairs, Intercooperation and the Society for Threatened People. £164,000
http://www.gfbv.ch/f/iarchiv.html
http://www.intercooperation.ch/offers/download/forest-management-congo/

2005- 2007: Indigenous Voices. With a $300,000 grant from the World Bank and an industrial logging company in Congo-Brazzaville this project pioneered practices, appropriate technologies and institutionalized procedures to ensure the co-management of 1.3 million hectares of forest by local indigenous people and company managers. The project has defined the basic practices and procedures required for achieving free, prior and informed consent from indigenous peoples in the Congo Basin (See Lewis 2006). The project was a Technology Museum Laureate in 2007. With the Tropical Forest Trust.
http://www.tft-forests.org/news/item.asp?n=9712

Selected publications

2009 As Well as Words: Congo Pygmy Hunting, Mimicry and Play. In Botha and Knight (eds) The Cradle of Language, Volume 2: African Perspectives, Oxford University Press, pp 232 – 252.

2008 Ekila: Blood, Bodies and Egalitarian Societies. In Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. 14:2: 297-315.

2008 Maintaining abundance, not chasing scarcity: the big challenge for the twenty-first century. Radical Anthropology Journal 2: 7-18. http://www.radicalanthropologygroup.org/journal_02.pdf

2008 Free, Prior and Informed Consent and Sustainable Forest Management in the Congo Basin. With Luke Freeman and Sophie Borreil. Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs, Intercooperation and Society for Threatened People Switzerland: Berne.
http://www.gfbv.ch or http://www.tropicalforests.ch

2006 ‘Les Pygmées Batwa du Rwanda: un peuple ignoré du Rwanda’ In La Margininalisation des Pygmées d’Afrique Centrale. Edited by Sévérin Cécile Abega and Patrice Bigombe Logo. Langres, France: Africaine d’Edition/ Maisonneuve et Larose. Pp. 79-105.

2005 ‘Whose Forest is it anyway? Mbendjele Yaka Pygmies, the Ndoki Forest and the Wider World’. In Property and Equality, Vol. 2 Encapsulation, Commercialisation, Discrimination. Edited by Thomas Widlok and Wolde Tadesse, Berghahn Books, pp. 56-78.

2002 ‘Putting Hunter-Gatherer and Farmer Relations in Perspective. A Commentary from Central Africa’. In Ethnicity, Hunter-Gatherers, and the ‘Other’: Association or Assimilation in Southern Africa? Edited by Susan Kent. Washington: Smithsonian Institute, pp. 276-305. With Axel Köhler.

2001 'Forest People or Village People: Whose voice will be heard?' In Africa’s Indigenous Peoples: 'First Peoples' or 'Marginalized Minorities'? Edited by Alan Barnard and Justin Kenrick, Edinburgh: CAS, pp. 61-78.

2000 The Batwa Pygmies of the Great Lakes Region. Minority Rights Group International: London, 32 pages.
http://www.minorityrights.org/?lid=1056

Translated into four languages: French (2001), Kiswahili, Banyarwanda and Kirundi in 2002.

1995 The Twa of Rwanda. Assessment of the Situation of the Twa and Promotion of Twa Rights in Post-War Rwanda. World Rainforest Movement and International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs, 112 pages (with Knight J.) Translated into French in 1996 by J.-C. Monod.

(see at end for complete list)

Media

Podcasts

Oxford Seminar on ‘Why the Bayaka sing so much’ (Feb 2011)
http://media.podcasts.ox.ac.uk/socanth/anthropology/2011-01-28-lewis-anthro.mp3?CAMEFROM=podcastsRSS

Radio

Australian Broadcasting Company. On Batwa Pygmies and their music, May 2011

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/intothemusic/stories/2011/3201641.htm

Voice of America. On contemporary issues facing Pygmies000, April 2011.

http://www.voanews.com/english/news/africa/southern/Pygmies-of-Central-Africa-Driven-from-Ancestral-Jungles--119688109.html

BBC Radio 3 On Pymgy music. Music Planet: Jungles Congo, Feb 2011. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00dvlws

BBC World Service Radio. ‘Lost in Translation: How do language, religion and culture influence how we think about climate change? 30 November 2010. http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/digitalp and the series page is at http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/science/2010/11/101129_climate_connection_programme_two_tx.shtml

BBC World Service Radio. News. GPS helps Pygmies Survive, 30^th January 2008. http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/news/2008/01/200811_jmd_baka_wt.shtml

BBC Radio 3. Sunday Feature: In the Beginning was the Song. 9^th December 2007.

BBC Radio 4. Thinking Allowed. The Mbendjele Yaka - Prioritising Sound, 16th February 2005.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/thinkingallowed_20050216.shtml

BBC World Service. The World Today. 17th October 2003.

Television

BBC News GPS helps Pygmies Defend Forest. 30th January 2008.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7218078.stm

BBC News 24 Forest Classroom. 31st January 2008. Direct link-ups between Cameroon and London
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldclass/cameroon_links.shtml

Reuters Alertnet video Mapping Congo’s Forests. 25 February 2008.
http://www.alertnet.org/thefacts/reliefresources/120393541550.

PhD Supervisees

Hala Kilani Al-hima: A way of Being. Traditional nature conservation practiced by tribal groups in the Arab and Islamic worlds for over 1400 years (Saudi Arabia). Completion due 2014.

Mekhala Krishnamurty, Corporate Social Responsibility Programmes in Central India. Completion due 2011.

Eileen Potts Exploring the egalitarian social and political experiments within the climate camp movement in UK. Completion due 2014.

Olivia Rickenbach Forest dwellers and biodiversity conservation in the context of industrial forestry, Republic of Congo (with Department of Environmental Science at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and CIFOR). Completion due 2013.

Catalina Tesar, Becoming a romni; becoming a rom: the creation of gendered Roma persons, Romania. Completion due 2012.

Cathryn Townsend, Transformation in Egalitarian Societies: Examining the emergence of inequality amongst Baka hunter-gatherers in Cameroon. Completion due 2014.

Olly Wymas The role of roads in influencing resource use among rural people living in Gabon (with Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London). Completion due 2013.

All Publications

Books

2008 Free, Prior and Informed Consent and Sustainable Forest Management in the Congo Basin. With Luke Freeman and Sophie Borreil. Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs, Intercooperation and Society for Threatened People Switzerland: Berne.
http://www.gfbv.ch or http://www.tropicalforests.ch

2000 The Batwa Pygmies of the Great Lakes Region. Minority Rights Group International: London, 32 pages.
http://www.minorityrights.org/?lid=1056

Translated into four languages: French (2001), Kiswahili, Banyarwanda and Kirundi in 2002.

1995 The Twa of Rwanda. Assessment of the Situation of the Twa and Promotion of Twa Rights in Post-War Rwanda. World Rainforest Movement and International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs, 112 pages (with Knight J.) Translated into French in 1996 by J.-C. Monod.

Book Chapters

2009 As Well as Words: Congo Pygmy Hunting, Mimicry and Play. In Botha and Knight (eds) The Cradle of Language, Volume 2: African Perspectives, Oxford University Press, pp 232 – 252.

2007 'Innovating e-Learning Practice in Context: What’s Going On? A customisable video-interpretation tool.' In Innovating e-Learning Practice. The Proceedings of Theme Three of the JISC Online Conference: Innovating e-Learning 2006. Edited by Geoff Minshull and Judith Mole. JISC: www.jisc.ac.uk. Pp. 43-47. With Steve Bond and Caroline Ingram.
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/programmes/elearning_pedagogy/a4_ebook_3.pdf

2006 'Les Pygmées Batwa du Rwanda: un peuple ignoré du Rwanda' In La Margininalisation des Pygmées d’Afrique Centrale. Edited by Sévérin Cécile Abega and Patrice Bigombe Logo. Langres, France: Africaine d’Edition/ Maisonneuve et Larose. Pp. 79-105.

2005 'Using Avoidance to maintain Autonomy. The Mbendjele Yaka of Congo-Brazzaville'. In Indigenous Peoples, their struggles and rights. Edited by Hersillia Fonseca. World Rainforest Movement International Secretariat: Uraguay. Pp. 75-78.

2005 'Whose Forest is it anyway? Mbendjele Yaka Pygmies, the Ndoki Forest and the Wider World'. In Property and Equality, Vol. 2 Encapsulation, Commercialisation, Discrimination. Edited by Thomas Widlok and Wolde Tadesse, Berghahn Books, pp. 56-78.

2002 'Indigenous and Traditional People in Africa: the Policy Context and the Case of Hunter-Gatherer Societies of Central Africa'. In Indigenous People and Biodiversity Conservation CD-ROM. Edited by Christiane Averbeck, Internationale Naturschutzakademie, Vilm Island, Germany: Bundesamt für Naturschutz, GTZ Gmbh.

2002 'Putting Hunter-Gatherer and Farmer Relations in Perspective. A Commentary from Central Africa'. In Ethnicity, Hunter-Gatherers, and the ‘Other’: Association or Assimilation in Southern Africa? Edited by Susan Kent. Washington: Smithsonian Institute, pp. 276-305. With Axel Köhler.

2001 'Forest People or Village People: Whose voice will be heard?' In Africa’s Indigenous Peoples: 'First Peoples' or 'Marginalized Minorities'? Edited by Alan Barnard and Justin Kenrick, Edinburgh: CAS, pp. 61-78.

2001 'Evolving Discrimination against the Forest People ('Pygmies') of Central Africa.' In Racism against Indigenous Peoples. Edited by Suhas Chakma and Marianne Jensen, Copenhagen: Asian Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Network (AITPN) and IWGIA, pp. 312-325. With Justin Kenrick.

Journal Articles

2008 Ekila: Blood, Bodies and Egalitarian Societies. In Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. 14:2: 297-315.

2008 Maintaining abundance, not chasing scarcity: the big challenge for the twenty-first century. Radical Anthropology Journal 2: 7-18. http://www.radicalanthropologygroup.org/journal_02.pdf

2007 Enabling forest people to map their resources & monitor illegal logging in Cameroon. Before Farming: the archaeology and anthropology of hunter-gatherers [online version] 2007/2 article 3.
http://www.waspress.co.uk/journals/beforefarming/journal_20072/news/2007_2_03.pdf

2006 'Logging in the Congo Basin. What hope for indigenous peoples' resources, and their environments? ’ In Indigenous Affairs, 4/06. Copenhagen: IWGIA. Pp. 8- 15. With John Nelson. Indigenous Affairs-2006 Congobasin.pdf

2004 'Indigenous Peoples' Rights and the Politics of the Term ‘Indigenous’’. Anthropology Today 20: 2, pp. 4-9. With Justin Kenrick.

Other publications

2007 ‘Learn it? – think again.’ LSE magazine 19: 2. Pp. 16-17. With Luke Freeman.

2006 ‘Deconstructing Pygmy Polyphonies’ and ‘Pygmy Music. Songs from the Forests of the Congo Basin’. In The Rough Guide to World Music, Africa and the Middle East. Edited by Simon Broughton, Mark Ellingham and John Lusk with Duncan Clark. London and New York: Rough Guides. Pp. 304- 312.

2005 ‘Greenpeace Report on the site visit to CIB in Congo-Brazzaville, December 2004’. Greenpeace, Switzerland. With Choumba, Itoua, Nelson, Pfottenhauer and Weidmer.
Available at http://www.greenpeace.org/raw/content/international/press/reports/CIB-Congo-Brazzaville.pdf.
Translated into French.

2005 ‘Digital Anthropological Resources for Teaching’ in Teaching Matters 17, pp. 1-2. With Luke Freeman.

2005 ‘Twa’ entry in the Encyclopedia of the World’s Minorities edited by Carl Skutsch, Routledge.

2001 ‘Indigenous Uses for the Sapelli Tree in Northern Congo.’ In Sold Down the River. The Need to control Transnational Forestry Corporations: a European Case Study. Forests Monitor: Cambridge. p.7.

1999 ‘The Batwa Pygmies of the Great Lakes Region, Central Africa.’ In Outsider 53, p.3.

1998 ‘Massana. Moments in Yaka Play and Ritual.’ In IX International Festival of Ethnographic Films. Music and Rituals. Catalogue. Edited by Paulo Piquereddu. Nuoro, Sardinia: ISRE. pp. 69-71. With Pfrang-Lewis I, and Lewis N.

Anthropological Films

2003 The hunter’s curse. Film for the ‘What’s Going On?’ video and document annotation tool used in teaching at LSE. 7 minutes.

1998 Massana. Moments in Yaka Play and Ritual, Ingrid Pfrang-Lewis and Nicolas Lewis. Jerome Lewis, anthropologist. Distributed by JIN Films, UK; 36 mins.

Reviews

2008 Review of Jacqueline Solway (ed.), ‘The Politics of Egalitarianism: Theory and Practice. In Critique of Anthropology. 28: 108-109.

2007 Review of 'The Politics of Egalitarianism'. Edited by Solway, Jaqueline. In Critique of Anthropology

2005 Review of ‘Headland, Thomas and Doris E. Blood (Editors). What Place for Hunter-Gatherers in Millennium Three? Publication 38, SIL International and International Museum of Cultures: Dallas, Texas, 2002.’ Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 11:1, pp. 174-175.

2005 Review of ‘Marc Sommers. Fear in Bongoland. Burundian Refugees in Urban Tanzania. Volume 8, Studies in Forced Migration, New York: Berghahn Books, 2001.’ Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 11:1, pp. 183.

2004 Review of ‘Johan Pottier, ‘Re-imagining Rwanda. Conflict, Survival and Disinformation in the late Twentieth Century.’ African Studies Series 102, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.’ Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 10:1, pp. 197-198.

2004 Review of ‘Jefremovas, Villia. Brickyards to Graveyards. From Production to Genocide in Rwanda. xi, SUNY Series in the Anthropology of Work. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002.’ Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 10:1, pp. 194-195.

2002 Review of ‘Barume, Kwokwo Albert. Heading Towards Extinction? Indigenous Rights in Africa: The case of the Twa of the Kahuzi-Biega National Park, Democratic Republic of Congo. IWGIA Document 101, 2000.’ Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 8:2, pp. 381-382.

2002 Conference Review of ‘Property and Equality Symposium. Max Plank Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle (Saale), Germany. June 25th – June 27th, 2001.’ In Anthropology Today, 18:1, pp. 24-25.

1999 ‘Music and Rituals.’ In Anthropology Today, 15:1, pp. 20-21.