Anna Bloom-Christen

Anna Bloom-Christen is an anthropologist with a background in philosophy. She is interested in how individuals experience and articulate togetherness, how groups emerge through collective action, and how knowledge is transmitted through bodily participation. Her philosophical training informs her approach to scrutinizing the foundational theories and methodologies of anthropology. She holds a BA in Philosophy and Social Sciences (University of Basel), an MA in Philosophy (University of St Andrews) a PhD in Anthropology (University of Basel / University of Konstanz).

For her PhD, Anna examined the role of intentions for shared actions in cross-cultural social settings. Drawing on a year of participatory fieldwork on foot, she explored local styles of walking together in post-apartheid South Africa as performances of (re)claiming public space. Her first book Walking Together: Challenging an Ethnographic Method from the Ground Up is forthcoming with Routledge.

Since completing her doctorate, Anna has been researching patterns of attentional habits at UCLA Anthropology while concluding fieldwork in South Africa. Her current project at the Rhodes Philosophy Department investigates how campus culture and gatekeeping structures impact “first gens”– that is, students who are the first in their families to pursue higher education. Employing a critical phenomenological approach, she is working on a book-length study on attentional habits in divided societies.