Insa Koch

Anthropology

Law

Criminology

Sociology

Political Economy

From 2022           Chair for British Cultures (Anthropology and Law), University of Sankt Gallen
2018-2022           Associate Professor and Director of the Anthropology and Law Programme
                               London School of Economics (LSE)
2014-2018            Assistant Professor and Director of the Anthropology and Law Programme, LSE
2012-2014            Fellow in Social Anthropology, LSE

Committees/Administration
Since 2024: Commission context study 
Since 2024: Appeals commmission (substitute member)
Since 2023: Tenure nad Promotions Committee (substitute member)

Auszeichnungen/Drittmittel

2017-19: Rockefeller Foundation and Institute of Global Affairs Research and Impact Seed Fund  Challenging urban decline narratives and enhancing community resilience
2015- 17: ESRC - Economic and Social Research Council Fund (£1 million) - Ethnography of advice: between the market, society and the declining welfare state’
2009-11: Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes - Doctoral Fellowship
2009: Wenner-Gren Foundation - Fieldwork grant for doctoral research
2008-10: Wadham College, University of Oxford - Fellowship with Senior Common Room and High Table dining rights

Auszeichnungen/Preise  

2022: SAGE Prize for Innovation and Excellence by British Sociological Association (BSA), awarded annually for best paper (Koch et al 2021)
2020: Winner of the Hart-SLSA (early career) book prize - Awarded for most outstanding scholarship in socio-legal studies by the Socio-Legal Studies Association
2020: Nominated for Hart-SLSA (general rubric) book prize - Awarded by the Socio-Legal Studies Association
2016-2019: Academic Fellow at the Honorary Society of Inner Temple - Fellowship awarded for outstanding legal research and teaching
2017: Excellence in Teaching Award, LSE - Awarded for outstanding contribution as Programme Director of the BA Anthropology and Law programme
2013-16: Nominated for Student Union Teaching Award, LSE
2012: Departmental Teaching Award, LSE
2008: C.S. MacTaggart Prize, LSE - Best performance across all BA programmes
2008: Blackstone Chambers Prize, LSE - Best performance in EU law exam
2008: Jean La Fontaine Prize, LSE - Best overall performance in Anthropology exams

Publikationen

Monographs
- Under contract with Oxford University Press, Making Slaves and their Masters: Race, Statecraft and Modern Slavery in Postcolonial Britain
- 2018       Personalizing the State: An Anthropology of Law, Politics and Welfare in Austerity Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press
- Winner, 2020 Hart-SLSA (early career) Book Prize
- Runner-up, 2020 Hart-SLSA (general rubric) Book Prize

Selective Reviews of the book:
- Gallo, Zelia. 2020, Modern Law Review 83(1): 237-241
- Willis, Roxanna. 2020, Punishment & Society 22(2): 247-251
- Adler, Michael. 2019, Journal of Law and Society 46(3): 520-522
- Cooper, Vickie. 2019, Theoretical Criminology 24(2): 408-410

Special Issues of Journals
Under review. "Corruption narratives as a political ontology of class". Sociological Review. With Sasha Hilhorst, Mark Frensham, Aaron Reeves and Mike Savage
Forthcoming: The return of the slave master: popular authoritarianism, modern slavery and the making of Black criminality in contemporary Virtain. Current Anthopology
forthcoming in 2025: “The rise of techno-moral governance” (with Professor Maja Hojer Bruun and Raul Acosta), winner of Social Anthropology’s annual competition for special issue proposals
2024: "From criminals to slaves: 'modern slavery', drugs trafficking, and the cultural politics of victimhood in postcolonial Britain. Current Anthropology 65.2 (2024): 267-291- With comments by Catherine Alexander, Anouk de Koning, Luke de Noronha, Julia O'Connell Davidson, Ben Rogaly, Farhan Samanani, Katherine Tylor
2024: Koch, Insa, Patrick Williams and Lauren Wroe. "'County lines': racism, safeguarding and statecraft in Britain." Race&Class 65.3 (2024): 3-26  -  Covered by the Observer, "Police County Lines Strategy 'Cruelly Targets' Black Youth in the UK' (November 19, 2023, by Mark Townsend)
2020  Special Issue on “The state of the welfare state” (with Deborah James). Ethnos (advance online publication)
2018  Special Issue on “Moral economies of housing’” (with Catherine Alexander and Maja Hojer Bruun). Critique of Anthropology 38(2): 121-139

Peer Reviewed Journal Articles
Forthcoming: “From criminals to slaves: ‘modern slavery’, drugs trafficking, and the cultural politics of victimhood in postcolonial Britain. Current Anthropology
2022  "Introduction to the state of the welfare state: advice, governance and care in settings of austerity” (with Professor Deborah James). Ethnos 1-22
2021  “Everyday authoritarianism: class and coercion on housing estates in neoliberal Britain” (with Davey, R). POLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review 44(1): 43-59
2021  “‘Good’ and ‘Bad’ deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic: insights from a rapid qualitative study”. (with Simpson, N, Angland M, Bhogal JK, Bowers RE, Cannell F, Gardner K, Lohiya AG, James D, Jivraj N, Koch I, Laws M, Lipton, J, Long, N, Veira, J, Watt, C, Whittle, C, Zidaro-Barbulesco, T, Bear, L )  BMJ Global Health 1(6)
2021 “From social security to state-sanctioned insecurity: how welfare reform mimics the commodification of labour through greater state intervention“. Economy & Society 50: 1-23
2021  “Social polarisation at the local level: a four-town comparative study on the challenges of politicising inequality in Britain (lead author; with Drs Mark Fransham; Sarah Cant, Jill Ebrey, Luna Glucksberg and Professor Mike Savage). Sociology 51(1): 3-29
- Winner of the Innovation/Excellence Paper Award of 2022 by the British Sociological Association 
2020  “The guardians of the welfare state: universal credit, welfare control and the moral economy of frontline work in austerity Britain”. Sociology (advanced online publication)
2019  “Turning human beings into lawyers: why anthropology matters so little to the legal curriculum'”. Journal of Legal Anthropology 3 (2): 99-104
2018  “Towards an anthropology of global inequalities and their local manifestations: social anthropology in 2017”. Social Anthropology 26 (2): 253-26
2018  “The matriarchs of the home: unspeaking subjects in times of austerity”. Feminists@law 8 (2)
2018  “From welfare to lawfare: environmental suffering, neighbour disputes and the law in UK social housing”. Critique of Anthropology. 38 (2): 253-268
2018  “Political economy comes home: on moral economies of housing’” (with Professor Catherine Alexander and Professor Maja Hojer Bruun). Critique of Anthropology 38(2): 121-139
2017  “What's in a vote? Brexit beyond culture wars”. American Ethnologist 44 (2): 225-230 
2017  “When politicians fail: Zombie democracy and the anthropology of actually existing politics”. The Sociological Review 56(1): 105-120
2017  “Moving Beyond Punitivism: Punishment, State Failure and Democracy at the Margins”. Punishment & Society 19(2): 203-220
2016  “‘Bread and butter politics’: democratic disenchantment and everyday politics on an English council estate”.  American Ethnologist 43(2): 282-294
2015  “‘The state has replaced the man’: citizenship, women and family homes on an English council estate’. Focaal - Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology 73(13): 84-96
2014  “Everyday experiences of state betrayal on an English council estate”. Anthropology of this Century 9 

Book Chapters
2023: "The challenges of polarisation: lessons for re-politicising inequality across four English towns". With Frensham, Mark; Cant, Sarah; Ebrey, Jill; Glucksberg, Luna; Savage, Mike. In Affective Polarisation: Social inequality in the UK after austerity, Brexit, and Covid-19, edited by J Gohrisch and G Stedman. Bristol: Policy Press
2022: “An anthropological perspective on welfare in (post) austerity and (post) pandemic Britain” in Adler, Michael, A Reader in Social Welfare Law, London: Edward Elgar Publishing
2020: “Changing care networks in the United Kingdom” (with Laura Bear, Nikita Simpson, Michael Angland, Jaskiran K. Bhogal, Rebecca E. Bowers, Fenella Cannell, Katy Gardner, Anishka Gheewala Lohiya, Deborah James, Naseem Jivraj, Megan Laws, Jonah Lipton, Nicholas J. Long, Jordan Vieira, Connor Watt, Catherine Whittle, Teodor Zidaru-Barbules) in Eckert, Andreas and Hentschke,  Felicitas. Corona and Work around the Globe. Work in Global and Historical Perspective
2020: “Economies of advice” (with Professor Deborah James) in Aldenderfer, Mark, (ed.) Oxford Research Encyclopaedia of Anthropology. Oxford: Oxford University Press
2017: “When politicians fail: Zombie democracy and the anthropology of actually existing politics”. Reprinted as part of Reconfiguring the Anthropology of Britain: Ethnographic, Theoretical and Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Edited by Cathrine Degnen and Katharine Tyler. The Sociological Review Monograph: SAGE Publications 

Reports
2024: Written evidence provided to the UK Parliament on the Modern Slavery Act 2015. Part of the British Parliament's inquiry into the act, submitted as written evidence to the Modern Slavery Act 2015 Committee.
2020: “A Right to care? The Social Foundations of Recovery from Covid-19”. (with Laura Bear, Nikita Simpson, Michael Angland, Jaskiran K. Bhogal, Rebecca E. Bowers, Fenella Cannell, Katy Gardner, Anishka Gheewala Lohiya, Deborah James, Naseem Jivraj, Megan Laws, Jonah Lipton, Nicholas J. Long, Jordan Vieira, Connor Watt, Catherine Whittle, Teodor Zidaru-Barbules). LSE Anthropology
2020: '"A Good Death" During the Covid-19 Pandemic in the UK: A Report of Key Findings and Recommendations' (with Laura Bear, Nikita Simpson, Michael Angland, Jaskiran K. Bhogal, Rebecca E. Bowers, Fenella Cannell, Katy Gardner, Anishka Gheewala Lohiya, Deborah James, Naseem Jivraj, Megan Laws, Jonah Lipton, Nicholas J. Long, Jordan Vieira, Connor Watt, Catherine Whittle, Teodor Zidaru-Barbules). LSE Anthropology

Commentary
2024: "Revisiting the call for the 'study of post-colonial politics': insights from post-colonial Britain". A Festschrift for Jonathan Spencer. Political and Legal Anthropology Review.
2023: "Anti-slavery and the war on gangs: colonialism, racial capitalism, and the state." in Global Criminal Law Review, (October 18, 2023)
2021: "On slavery, race and criminal justice." Howard League Penal Reform
2021: ‘21st century Slavery, young victims and county lines’. LSE Research Magazine
2020: 'Urban struggles: governance, resistance, and solidarity' (with Raúl Acosta, Flávio Eiró, and Martijn Koster) Special issue dited for Focaal Blog
2020: 'The Making of Modern Slavery in Austerity Britain' . Focaal Blog
2019: 'Who are the slave masters of today? County lines, drug trafficking, and modern slavery policies' Centre for Crime and Justice Blog
2019: 'Everyday authoritarianism: an anthropology of citizenship and welfare in austerity Britain' LSE British Politics and Policy Blog
2018: 'The Myth of the Mob Rule or the Myth of Democracy? An Anthropological Take' Howard Journal of Crime and Justice
2018: 'The labour of care: why we need an alternative political economy of social care' LSE British Politics and Policy Blog
2016: 'Brexit Referendum: first reactions from anthropology'. Social Anthropology Blog
2016: 'A vote of no confidence in the people in power: we need local control!' . LSE Brexit Blog
2014: 'A policy that kills’: The bedroom tax is an affront to basic rights'. LSE British Politics and Policy Blog
2013: 'Bedroom Tax an "attack on public welfare"' .LSE Comment and Opinion Blog
2013: 'The Bedroom Tax: A Two-Prolonged Attack'. New Left Project