Stephen Nugent

Professor Stephen Nugent studied at Reed and at the London School of Economics. His research in Brazil has focused mainly on Brazilian Amazonian societies, especially mestiço peasants of the Lower Amazon, and he has published a number of books on Amazonian themes. He has long been involved in editing the journal Critique of Anthropology and recently published a collection drawn from the journal (Critical Anthropology: foundational works, 2012). His general interests lie in the areas of historical anthropology, cognitive anthropology and anthropology’s combative relationship with science.

Since setting up the MA in Visual Anthropology in 1999, he has been involved in various projects related to anthropology and film (including the new BA in Anthropology and Visual Practice and the Centre for Visual Anthropology). Waila (2009) and Sounds Like a Vintage Guitar (2012) are anthropological documentary films he has filmed and directed (in collaboration with Ricardo Leizaola), the former focused on a Tohono O’odham musician from Tucson, the latter an exploration of the business and craft of making and faking historical electric guitars.

He is currently researching and writing about ‘the anthropocene and anthropogenicism’ and ‘Amazonian rubber and commodity chains’. He is the author of The Rise and Fall of the Amazon Rubber Industry: an Historical Anthropology. Routledge, 2018.