SCI | Extending the imagination

Exploring how subjectivity and imagination shape experiences, histories, and worlds across diverse cultural contexts.

A Word of Welcome:

UCL Anthropology's research platform on Subjectivity and the Cultural Imagination (SCI) brings together anthropologists working on the role of the imagination in diverse social and cultural scales - from the intimate arenas of subjective experience to the most encompassing vistas of cosmological contemplation. Rooted in rigorous ethnographic research in settings across the globe, we explore comparatively the imaginative and intimate dimensions of history, politics, law, economy, religion, and cosmology. Using ethnographically-based insights we seek to refigure the ways in which we, as social scientists, imagine the social and cultural world, and ultimately to extend the anthropological imagination itself.

A hub for versatile anthropological research, activities and events, SCI promotes empirically driven thinking and a readiness to experiment with novel themes and contemporary theoretical frameworks. Our research activities range from informal, student-led reading groups and workshops to major internationally funded research programmes and networks. Combining the knowledge and skills of academic staff and research students at UCL and beyond, our research clusters around five core themes: