Lewis Daly

Lecturer in Social Anthropology

DPhil Anthropology, Oxford (2011-15) - ESRC Fellowship
MSc Social Anthropology, Oxford (2009)
BSc Anthropology, UCL (2007)

Research Interests

Environmental Anthropology
Lowland South America, Amazonia, the Guianas, the Caribbean
Multispecies Anthropology (ethnoecology, ethnobotany, ethno-ornithology)
The Anthropology of Techniques (horticulture, hunting, fishing, fermentation)
Shamanism and Indigenous Cosmologies
Personhood and the Body in Amazonia
The Politics of Conservation (ecotourism, PES incentives, REDD+)

Current Research Projects

Ongoing ethnographic field research with the Carib-speaking Makushi people of Amazonian Guyana, South America. I have been working with Makushi communities in the Rupununi savannahs of Guyana since 2011. My field research concerns multispecies relationships, agroecological systems, ontological hybridity, and the politics of conservation.
Since 2015, I have been collaborating with the Ethno-ornithology World Archive (EWA) and the non-profit organisation BirdLife International to conduct a global literature review into the roles of avifauna and ethno-ornithology in delivering conservation at community level. The ongoing project spans perspectives from research, practice, and policy.
As of June 2016, I have been working with the Goeldi Museum (MPEG) in Belém, Brazil on an ethnobiological project concerning human-plant communication in indigenous Amazonia. The project - entitled 'Sign, Substance, and Sensation' - focuses on the role of chemo-sensation and micro-materiality in human-vegetal interactions, and will result in a series of co-authored articles.

Selected Publications

Daly, Lewis and Glenn H. Shepard Jr. 2019. Magic Darts and Messenger Molecules: Toward a phytoethnography of indigenous Amazonia. Anthropology Today 35(2):13-17.

Daly, Lewis. 2019. The Nature of Sweetness: An indigenous fermentation complex in Amazonian Guyana. In R. Dunbar and K. Hockings (eds.), Alcohol and Humans: A long and social history. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Daly, Lewis, Luiseach Nic Eoin, Katherine French, and Theresa Miller. 2016. Botanical Ontologies: Integrating ontology into ethnobotanical research. Journal of Ethnobiology 36(1):1-9.

Daly, Lewis. 2016. Cassava Spirit and the Seed of History: The biocultural history of a staple crop in native Amazonia. Commodity Histories, an academic blog of the Open University. February 2016, online.

Daly, Lewis. 2015. What Kind of People are Plants? The challenges of researching human-plant relations in Amazonia. Engagement, blog of the Anthropology and Environment Society, American Anthropological Association (AAA). December 8, 2015, online.

Andel, Tinde van, Sofie Ruysschaert, Karin Boven, and Lewis Daly. 2015. The Use of Amerindian Charm Plants in the Guianas. Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine 11:66.

Journals Edited

'Botanical Ontologies', special section of the Journal of Ethnobiology, 2016, 36(1). Lewis Daly, Luiseach Nic Eoin, Katherine French, and Theresa Miller (eds).

Conferences Organised

'Botanical Ontologies: A cross-disciplinary forum on human-plant relationships'. June, 2014. A two-day conference held at the Department of Philosophy, University of Oxford. Funded by a £2,500 grant from The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH). Roles: organiser, chair, discussant.

Keywords

Makushi, Guyana, Amazonia, indigenous studies, multispecies, environment, ethnoecology, ethnobotany, ecosemiotics, plants, birds, conservation, cosmology, political ontology.