Petra Tjitske Kalshoven
Petra Tjitske is a Lecturer in Social Anthropology based in the School of Social Sciences at The University of Manchester. Petra Tjitske’s research draws on insights from materiality, performance, ecological and museum anthropology and focuses on skilled manifestations of human curiosity and play. She is the author of Crafting ‘the Indian’: Knowledge, Desire, and Play in Indianist Reenactment (Berghahn Books, 2012). With The Beam, she pursues her interest in human expertise and the skilled and persuasive ways in which people seek to engage specific materials and landscapes. Read more about Petra Tjitske
The Power of the Special
Special Nuclear Materials – those fissile isotopes from which spring all the promise and the peril in the ‘nuclear’
Repetition and Sustainability
Exploring entanglements and tensions that arise between ‘the repetitive’ and ‘the sustainable’ in nuclear discourse
A new research project in the making: ‘Mimesis in Action’
‘Mimesis in Action: Nuclear decommissioning as conceptual playground for societal and ecological future making’ is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council
Nuclear Science and Engineering as Social Practice
The Beam launches interdisciplinary postgraduate module
The nuclear family – a reflection on core concepts
Core concepts of social life are reinvented or reinforced during Covid-19.
Artistic exploration for Sellafield’s future
The Beam visits ‘x=2140’, a fascinating exhibition born from the Sellafield site futures project.
Exploring Sellafield’s limitless future
Petra reflects on the workshops held to invigorate the discussion of possible end-states for the Sellafield site by the year 2140.
Sellafield site futures
Led by The University of Manchester, this project considers Sellafield’s possible end states.
Talking waste disposal with David Lowry
Surrounded by overwhelmingly positive attitudes studying ‘the nuclear’ in West Cumbria, ethnographer Petra finds a counter-narrative.
The fieldwork of attending a conference
Presenting at a conference can be part of doing anthropological fieldwork, even when ‘the field’ seems far away.