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Department of Anthropology

Research Group Member Profile

Dr Stephen M. Lyon, BSc (Goldsmiths'), PhD (Kent)

Personal web page

Senior Lecturer in the Department of Anthropology
Approved First-Aider, Department of Anthropology
Telephone: +44 (0) 191 33 41597
Senior Lecturer in the Health and Human Sciences
Telephone: +44 (0) 191 33 40246

(email at s.m.lyon@durham.ac.uk)

Personal Website

Biography

History and Anthropology

Stephen Lyon obtained a BSc in Social Anthropology from Goldsmiths' College, London in 1993 and his PhD in Social Anthropology from the University of Kent in 2002. His primary research interests focus on local politics, patron-client networks and cultural models in Punjab, Pakistan. He has also conducted research on ethnicity and identity both in Pakistan and among Pakistani diaspora. In addition he has worked closely with the Pakistan Agricultural Research Council on agricultural development. In addition to his ongoing interests in Pakistan and Islamist politics in the Muslim world, he has conducted research on Jodoshinshu Buddhist Temple networks in western Japan. He is the author of An anthropological analysis of local politics and patronage in a Pakistani village. (2004 Edwin Mellen Press). He is currently one of the managing editors of Structure and Dynamics (University of California eJournal) and is co-editor (with Professor Paul Sant Cassia) of History and Anthropology (a Routledge journal).


Main research themes

I argue throughout the body of my research that, operationally, the only defensible concept of culture is one of competing specialised cultural systems. Such systems are not all equally powerful, nor are they all equally pervasive; an important thread throughout my work is a focus on those cultural systems which would seem to be core to the culture in question. So for example, from the ethnographic body of evidence available, it would appear that the symbolic systems which generate genealogical relationships between people (i.e. kinship terminologies), is a core cultural system in most, if not all extant cultures. Indeed, it may be that some rudimentary form of kinship terminology exists among the great apes suggesting that something we might call proto-cultural systems must have been present in our common ancestors. Other core cultural systems for specific cultures (such as that found in and around both halves of Punjab in South Asia) almost certainly must include basic floral and faunal taxonomic hierarchies, colour classifications, basic principles of honour/self control and of social organisation such as the logic factions. Other cultural systems then build upon core cultural systems and in real life, people must respond to shifting contingencies in ways which best maximise their attainment of their own goals (within the context). Hence, we have unpredictability because there is not a single cultural system guiding attitudes and behaviours, but rather sets of discreet cultural systems which have informed non-core cultural systems (such as legal or religious systems).

Academic Software

Working with the Centre for Social Anthropology and Computing at the University of Kent, I have been involved in trialling purpose built software to deal with the complex data types we typically produce in anthropology. The software tools I have been most involved in testing are the CSAC XML Fieldnote Editor, VideoGROK, the CSAC XML Kinship Editor and KAES (the Kinship Algebra Expert System). For more information on these and other potentially useful software tools for working with disparate data types please visit AnthroMethods.net

Research Groups

Research Projects

Research Interests

  • Conflict resolution, political and legal anthropology
  • Cultural Systems
  • Kinship and Social Networks
  • Pakistan
  • Islam
  • Computing and Anthropology

Indicators of Esteem

Selected Publications

Books: authored

Books: edited

Books: reviews

Conference papers

  • Stephen M. Lyon (2012), Conceptual Models of Nature in Pakistan, in Giovanni Bennardo eds, ESE Working Papers 1: Cultural Models of Nature and the Environment: Self, Space, and Causality. DeKalb, Illinois, Institute for the Study of the Environment, sustainability, and Energy, Northern Illinois University, 29-34.

Edited works: contributions

Edited works: journals

Essays in edited volumes

Journal papers: academic

Other media: research

Show all publications

Related Links

Media Contacts

Available for media contact about:

  • Computers: E-Social Science
  • Anthropology: Cultural systems
  • Conflict and resolution: Pakistani politics
  • Anthropology:
  • Conflict and resolution:
  • Politics & Society:
  • Middle eastern and Islamic studies:

Grants Awarded

  • 2010: Wenner-Gren Workshop Grant for the first European Meeting of the Society for Anthropological Sciences in Pilsen, Czech Republic, $10,000
  • 2007: WADSWORTH INTERNATIONAL FELLOWSHIP (£39268.97 from )
  • 2005: From the Horse's Mouth: Integrating Video and Teaching in Higher Education in Anthropology. C-SAP £6000.
  • 2005: From the horses mouth (£6000.00 from C-SAP)
  • 2004: Contextual instantiation of indigenous domain knowledge: An e-science approach. ESRC £5000.
  • 2003: Genealogies of Knowledge - Developing Anthropological Middleware to Support Fieldwork-based Social Science (Investigators: M. Fischer, D. Zeitlyn, N. Ryan (Kent) P. Sillitoe, S. Lyon (Durham)). EPSRC £204,959

Supervises