Staff Profiles

Dr Sandra Bell, BA, PhD

(email at sandra.bell@durham.ac.uk)

Biography

Sandra Bell attended Newcastle University as a mature student, graduating in 1984 with a degree in Combined Honours. She gained a PhD in anthropology at Durham University with a thesis on British Buddhism and has published on the growth of Buddhism in the West. Sandra was involved in designing and setting up the Human Sciences degrees at Queen's Campus, Stockton and has taught on these programmes since their inception. From 2001 to 2004 she was Project Leader for an EU funded research programme, Integrated Management of European Wetlands (IMEW). The project seeks to understand how to accomodate socio-economic development with the goal of maintaining biodiversity in wetlands in Finland, Greece, Lithuania and Romaina. Sandra has co-edited two volumes, Celibacy, Culture and Society: The Anthropology of Sexual Abstinence (co-edited with the American medical anthropologist Elisa Sobo) and The Anthropology of Friendship (co-edited with Simon Coleman).

Research Interests

• Environmental anthropology
• European wetlands
• Interdisciplinarity
• Socio-technical systems of energy
• Western Buddhism

Selected Publications

Book chapters: online

• Bell, Sandra, Marzano, Mariella & Podjed, Dan (2010). Inside Monitoring: a comparison of bird monitoring groups in Slovenia and the United Kingdom. In Taking stock of nature: Participatory biodiversity assessment for policy, planning and practice. Lawrence, Anna Cambridge University Press. 232-250.

Books: edited

• Sobo E.J. & Bell,S. (2001). Celibacy, Culture and Society: The anthropology of sexual abstinence. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.

Books: sections

• Carss David Bell Sandra & Marzano Mariella (2009). Competing and Coexisting with Cormorants: Ambiguity and change in European wetlands. In Landscape, Power and Process: Re-evaluating traditional environmental knowledge. Heckler Serena Oxford: Berghahn.
• Bell Sandra & Hugo Reinert (2009). On the Outside Looking In: Biodiversity and the algebra of life. In MESS and RAMSES II, Vol. 7, Mediterranean Ethnological Summer School. Jaka Repic, Alenka Bartulovic, Katarina Sajovec Altshul, & Emir Pasanovic Ljubljana Ljubljana Znanstvena zalozba Filozofske fakultete. 7: 327-342.
• Bell, S. (2002). Scandals in Emerging Western Buddhism. In Westward Dharma: Buddhism Beyond Asia. Prebish, C.S. & Baumann, M. Berkeley: University of California Press. 230-242.
• Bell, S. & Sobo, E.J (2001). Celibacy in Cross-Cultural Perspective: An Overview. In Celibacy, Culture and Society: The anthropology of sexual abstinence. Sobo, Elisa & Bell, Sandra Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. 3-26.
• Bell, S. (2001). Nature and Gender in Theravada Buddhism. In Women as Sacred Custodians of the Earth? Women, Spirituality, and the Environment. Low, Alaine & Tremayne, Soraya Oxford: Berghahn. 175-192.
• Bell S (2000). A Survey of Engaged Buddhism in Britain. In Engaged Buddhism in the West. C Queen Boston: Wisdom. 397-422.
• Bell S & Coleman S (1999). The Anthropology of Friendship: Enduring Themes and Future Possibilities. In The Anthropology of Friendship. Bell S, Coleman S (eds) Oxford: Berg. 1-20.

Journal papers: academic

• Adams, A, Taylor, P & Bell, S (2012). Equity Dimensions of Micro-generation: A whole systems approach. Journal of Renewable Sustainable Energy 4(5).
• van Assche,K, Bell,S & Teampau, P (2012). Traumatic Nature of the Swamp: Concepts of Nature in the Romanian Danube Delta. Environmental Values 21(2): 163-183.
• Bell, Sandra, Reinert, Hugo, Cent, Joanna, Grodzińska-Jurczak, Malgorzata, Kobierska, Hanna, Podjed, Dan & Vanzinskaite, Deivida (2011). Volunteers on the political anvil: citizenship and volunteer biodiversity monitoring in three post communist countries. Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy 29(1): 170-185.
• Bell Sandra, Hampshire Kate & Tonder Mika (2008). Person, Place and Knowledge in the Conservation of the Saimaa Ringed Seal. Society and Natural Resources 21(4): 277-293.
• Bell Sandra, Mariella Marzano, Joanna Cent, Hanna Kobierska, Dan Podjed, Deivida Vandzinskaite, Hugo Reinert, Ausrine Armaitiene, Malgorzata Grodzinska-Jurczak & Rajko Mursic. (2008). What Counts? Volunteers and their organisations in the recording and monitoring of biodiversity. Biodiversity and Conservation 17(14): 3443-3454.
• Bell, S., Hampshire K. & Topalidou S. (2007). The Political Culture of Poaching: A case study from Northern Greece. Biodiversity and Conservation 16(2): 399-418.
• Marzano, M., Carss, D. & Bell, S. (2006). Working to Make Interdisciplinarity Work: Investing in Communication and Interpersonal Relationships. Journal of Agricultural Economics 57(2): 185-197.
• Hampshire, K.R., Bell, S., Wallace, G.E. & Stepukonis, F. (2004). 'Real' poachers and predators: shades of meaning in local understandings of threats to fisheries. Society and Natural Resources 17(4): 305-318.
• Bell S (2000). Being Creative with Tradition: Rooting Theravada Buddhism in Britain. Journal of Global Buddhism 1: 1-15.
• Bell S (1998). British Theravada Buddhism: Otherworldly Theories and the Theory of Exchange. Journal of Contemporary Religion 13(2): 149-170.

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