The 2024 Huxley Lecture will be given by Alex de Waal 

Thursday 24 October 2024 at 6.00pm

Venue:
John Snow Lecture Theatre, Keppel Street Building, The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, WC1E 7HT

The lecture is preceded by the RAI AGM.
It will be followed by a drinks reception at 7:30 in the Pumphandle Social Refectory and Courtyard (Located in the same building)
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Anthropology and the Humanitarian Encounter:
Famine, Societal Trauma and the Academy

Famines have returned, most prominently in Sudan and Gaza. Mass starvation challenges political leaders, the public and the academy. Drawing on these and other cases, this lecture places social anthropologists in the centre of the story of how we have come to understand humanitarian emergency, famine and mass starvation. Three fields of study frame how we represent and respond to famine, each having distinct methods and frameworks, but each owing much to anthropology. One is positivist metrics for measuring food security, malnutrition and mortality, exemplified by the United Nations-accredited Integrated food security Phase Classification initiative, which is today’s authoritative mechanism for determining ‘famine.’ Second is legal, political and economic analysis of policies, especially criminal acts, that cause mass starvation. Third is the ethnography of famine as experienced, also drawing upon history, memory studies and literature. Social anthropology is uniquely positioned to synthesize these approaches, leading to insights into famine as societal trauma, with implications for the academy, for policy, and listening to the voices of the hungry.

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If you have accessibility requirements, please email info@therai.org.uk 

If feeling unwell especially if showing respiratory symptoms or having an itchy, blister-like rash, please do stay at home.
You will be able to join the AGM virtually as well. For that, follow this link: https://lshtm.zoom.us/j/91326481311?pwd=4g9lV7uxRlDQJl9kRZ0yiCI89x8a2h.1