Wolfson Fellow

Prof Bob Simpson, BA, PhD

(email at robert.simpson@durham.ac.uk)

Biography

Bob Simpson is a social anthropologist whose current research interests focus on Bioethics, Biomedicine and Biotechnologies in developing world contexts. One of the main research settings in which he has explored the encounter between challenging technological developments and local systems of values and beliefs is Sri Lanka. Between 2002-04 he held a Wellcome Biomedical Ethics Fellowship which enabled him to carry out research into the reception of new reproductive and genetic technologies.

He is currently work on the ethics of experimentation and the governance of scientific research in Asia through an ESRC/DfID funded project:

• Biomedical Health Experimentation in South Asia [£500k Bob Simpson CI along with Dr Salla Sariola (Durham) and Professor Roger Jeffery and Dr Ian Harper (Edinburgh)].

Recently completed projects include:

• Infertility and the New Reproductive Technologies among British Pakistani Moslems. [£167k Bob Simpson, Principal Investigator along with Kate Hampshire, Co-Investigator and Mwenza Blell Reseacher]
• International Science Collaborations and Bioethics. [£1.4million Professor Marilyn Strathern as Principal Investigator and Bob Simpson Co-Investigator [Durham], Monica Konrad [Cambridge] and Margaret Sleeboom Faulkner [Sussex].

He was also Principal Investigator on a Researcher Development Initiative project [£58k along with Robin Humphrey of Newcastle University ] to develop workshops and resources supporting third year PhD students writing up Qualitative data: Writing Across Boundaries. This project also provides support for students from Sunderland, Teesside and Northumbria as well as Durham and Newcastle.

Indicators of Esteem

• 2011: REF 2014 Panel Member [Anthropology and Development].:
• 2010: Member of the editorial board of Anthropology in Action:
• 2010: Member of the editorial board of LATISS [Learning and Teaching in the Social Sciences]:
• 2010: Member of the ESRC Peer Review College:
• 2010: Member of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics Working Party on Human Tissue Donation in Research and Therapy [2010-2011]:
• 2010: Member of the Royal Anthroplogical Institute Publications Committee [2009-2011]:
• 2010: Member of the Royal Anthropological Institute Council:
• 2010: Member of the Royal Anthropological Institute Medical Anthropology Committee :

Research Groups

Department of Anthropology

• Medical Anthropology
• Public Culture in Theory and Practice Research Group
• Social Anthropology

Research Projects

Department of Anthropology

• Infertility and the New Reproductive Technologies among British Pakistani Moslems

Research Interests

• 'Human subject research' and the ethics of experimentation involving humans
• Comparative bioethics
• Kinship and the new reproductive and genetic technologies
• Kinship, divorce, and relationship breakdown in Western societies
• Narrative and biography
• Sri Lanka, ritual tradition and performance
• Tissue economies [as these relate to organs, gametes and embryos]

Selected Publications

Books: sections

• Simpson, Bob (Published). Building Capacity: A Sri Lankan Perspective On Ethics And Accountability. In Collaborators Collaborating: Counterparts in Anthropological Knowledge and International Research Relations. Konrad, Monica Oxford: Berghahn.
• Kneckt, M. Beck, S. & Klotz, M. (2012). Legacies and Linkages: Episodes in the Establishment of New Reproductive Technologies in Contemporary Sri Lanka. In Reproductive Technologies As Global Form: Ethnographies of Knowledge, Practices, and Transnational Encounters. Campus Press and Chicago University Press.
• Simpson, B. (2011). Capacity Building in Developing World Bioethics: Perspectives on biomedical ethics in contemporary Sri Lanka. In The Social Functions of Bioethics Around the Globe. Myser, C Oxford University Press.
• Simpson, B (2006). ‘You don’t do fieldwork, fieldwork does you’ Between Subjectivation and Objectivation in Anthropological Fieldwork. In In Hobbs and Wright [eds] The Sage Handbook of Fieldwork. Hobbs, D. & Wright, R. London: Sage.
• Coleman, S. & Simpson, B. (2004). Knowing, Doing and Being: Pedagogies and Paradigms in the Teaching of Social Anthropology. In Current Policies and Practices in European Social Anthropology. Drackle, D. & Edgar I. Oxford: Berghahn. 18-33.
• Simpson, R. (2004). Localising a Brave New World: New Reproductive Technologies and the Politics of Fertility in Contemporary Sri Lanka. In Reproductive Agency, Medicine and the State: Cultural Transformations in Childbearing. Unnithan-Kumar, Maya. New York Oxford: Beghahn Books. 43-57.

Essays in edited volumes

• Simpson, Bob (2010). A ‘Therapeutic Gap’ Anthropological Perspectives on Prenatal Diagnostics and Termination in Sri Lanka. In Predictive Testing and the Social Sciences: frameworks of choice in Asia. Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam. 27-42.

Journal papers: academic

• Simpson, B. (Published). A good straight road: Reflections on the development of pre-university anthropology in the UK. Anthropology in Action (2-3).
• Simpson, B. & Sleeboom-Faulkner, M. (2013). Foreword. Special edition on Precarious Ethics. BioSocieties 8(1): 41.
• Humphrey, R. & Simpson, B. (2013). Negotiating a ‘Scary Gap’ Doctoral Candidates, ‘Writing Up’ Qualitative Data and the Contemporary Supervisory Relationship. Journal of Education and Training Studies 1(1).
• Sariola, S. & Simpson, B. (2013). Precarious ethics: Toxicology research among self-poisoning hospital admissions in Sri Lanka. BioSocieties 8(1): 41.
• Hampshire, K.R, Blell, M.T. & Simpson, B (2012). ‘Everybody is moving on’ Infertility, relationality and the aesthetics of family among British-Pakistani Muslims. Social Science & Medicine 74(7): 1045-1052.
• Simpson, B & Sariola, S. (2012). Blinding Authority: Randomized Clinical Trials and the Production of Global Scientific Knowledge in Contemporary Sri Lanka. Science, Technology & Human Values 37(5): 555-575.
• Hampshire, K.R., Blell, M.T. & Simpson, B (2012). Navigating New Socio-Demographic Landscapes: Using Anthropological Demography to Understand the ‘Persistence’ of High and Early Fertility Among British Pakistanis. European Journal of Population / Revue européenne de Démographie 28(1): 39-63.
• Hampshire, K., Blell, M., Iqbal, N. & Simpson, B. (2012). The interview as narrative ethnography: seeking and shaping connections in qualitative research. International Journal of Social Research Methodology 1-17.
• Simpson, B (2011). Blood Rhetorics: Donor campaigns and their publics in contemporary Sri Lanka. Ethnos 76(2): 254-275.
• SIMPSON, B. (2011). Ethical Moments: Future Directions in Ethical review for Ethnography. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 17(2): 377-393.
• Sariola, S & Simpson, B (2011). Theorising The 'Human Subject' In Biomedical Research: International Clinical Trials And Bioethics Discourses In Contemporary Sri Lanka. Social Science & Medicine 73(4): 515-521.
• Simpson, B. & Humphrey, R. (2010). Writing Across Boundaries: Reflections on the Place of Writing in Doctoral Research Training for Social Scientists. Learning and Teaching (The International Journal of Higher Education in the Social Sciences) 3(1).
• Simpson, Bob (2009). 'Please give a drop of blood’ Blood donation, conflict and the haemato-global assemblage in contemporary Sri Lanka'. Body and Society [Special Issue on Blood Donation, Bioeconomy and Culture edited by Jacob Copeman] 15(2): 101-22
• Simpson, B. (2009). Citizenship, Craft and the Making of Mode Two Citizens. Learning and Teaching (The International Journal of Higher Education in the Social Sciences) 2(3): 98-105.
• Simpson, Bob (2009). We have always been modern: Buddhism, Science and the New Genetic and Reproductive Technologies in Sri Lanka. Culture and Religion 10(2): 137-157.
• Kumarasiri, P.V.R., Arseculeratne, S. N., Premasiri P. D. & Simpson, B. (2008). Centres of Ethical Gravity: A Comparison of Responses to Contemporary Biomedical Dilemmas among Young People in Sri Lanka and England. Biomedical Law & Ethics 2(2): 211-237.
• Arseculeratne, S.N., Simpson, R., Premasiri, P.D. & Kumasiri, P.V.R. (2008). Ethics, Culture and Relativism: Some reflections on teaching Medical Ethics in Sri Lanka. Biomedical Law and Ethics 2(1): 131-160.
• Simpson, B. & Humphrey, R. (2008). Writing Across Boundaries: Writing and Rhetoric in Qualitative Research. Qualitative Researcher 8: 10-11.
• Simpson, B. (2007). Negotiating the Therapeutic Gap: Prenatal Diagnostics and Termination in Sri Lanka. Bioethical Enquiry 5(3): 207-215.
• Simpson, B. (2007). On Parrots and Thorns: Sri Lankan Perspectives on Genetics, Science and Personhood. Health Care Analysis 15(1): 41-49.
• Simpson, R. (2004). Acting ethically, responding culturally: Framing the new reproductive and genetic technologies in Sri Lanka. The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 5(3): 227-243.
• Simpson, R. (2004). Impossible gifts: Bodies, Buddhism and Bioethics in Contemporary Sri Lanka. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 10(4): 839-859.
• Simpson, R. (2001). Making 'bad' deaths 'good': The kinship consequences of posthumous conception. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 7(1): 1-18.

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Media Contacts

Available for media contact about:

• Religion: ritual
• Religion: tradition
• Religion: Sri Lanka

Grants Awarded

• 2011: Volunteers, donors and vendors: A study of the (£104184.00 from Wellcome Trust)
• 2010: Biomedical and Health Experimentation (£164161.00 from Esrc)
• 2007: INTERNATIONAL SCIENCE AND BIOETHICS (£213815.03 from Esrc)
• 2006: British Pakistani Moslems, infertility and the new (£169282.00 from Esrc)
• 2006: WRITING ACROSS BOUNDARIES (£43505.27 from Esrc)
• 2002: NEW REPRODUCTIVE & GENETIC TECHNOLOGIES SRI LANKA (£47614.00 from The Wellcome Trust)