Staff profile

I read English Literature at Durham, later moving to social anthropology at Cambridge University. Inbetween I worked for a number of central government departments in Britain and Turkey. I moved to the Durham Anthropology Department in 2012 after ten years in Goldsmiths.

I’ve carried out fieldwork in Turkey, Kazakhstan and Britain. Most of that has been on changing relations between state, market and the third sector, the built environment, local and central bureaucracy, migration, and various forms of waste and recycling (repair, reuse, recovery etc). My last period of fieldwork explored how formerly elite closed ‘nuclear’ towns in Kazakhstan were trying to re-connect to broader economies.

I’m currently on a Leverhulme Trust research fellowship (2019-2022) thinking about how different forms and fears of failure affect complex organisations, such as large science collaborations, and how they are experienced by the people who work within them.

• Economic and political anthropology
• Changing property regimes
• Privatisation
• Third / voluntary sector
• wastes (including recycling)
• Bureaucracy
• Indeterminacy
• Failure
• Inequalities
• Migration
• Urban anthropology
• Social/public housing
• post-socialism
• Middle East (Turkey)
• Central Asia (Kazakhstan)
• Britain

• Social Anthropology

Authored book

• Alexander, C. (2002). Personal States: making connections between people and bureaucracy in Turkey. Oxford University Press.

Chapter in book

• Alexander, Catherine & Sosna, Daniel (2022). Thrift, Anti-thrift, Scale and Paradox. In Thrift and its Paradoxes: From Domestic to Political Economy. Alexander, Catherine & Sosna, Daniel Berghahn Books. 10.
• Gille, Zsuzsa, Lepawsky, Josh, Alexander, Catherine & Gregson, Nicky (2022). At home with the waste scholar. In The Routledge Handbook of Waste Studies. Gille, Zsuzsa & Lepawsky, Josh London and New York: Routledge.
• Alexander, C & Reno, J.O (2020). Global Entanglements of Recycling Policy and Practice. In Oxford Research Encyclopaedia of Anthropology. Aldenderfer, M Oxford Oxford University Press.
• Duckworth, C, Wilson, A, Van Oyen, A, Alexander, C, Evans, J, Green, C & Mattingley, D (2020). When the Statue is both Marble and Lime. In Recycling and Reuse in the Roman Economy. Duckworth, C & Wilson, A Oxford: Oxford University Press. 449-460.
• Alexander, C. & Sanchez, A. (2019). Introduction: The Values of Indeterminacy. In Indeterminacy: waste, value, and the Imagination. Alexander, C. & Sanchez, A. New York Oxford: Berghahn Books. 7: 1-30.
• Alexander, C. (2019). Indeterminate classifications: being ‘more than kin’ in Kazakhstan. In Indeterminacy: waste, value, and the Imagination. Alexander, C. & Sanchez, A. New York Oxford: Berghahn Books. 7: 134-160.
• Alexander, C. (2018). Charity and philanthropy. In International Encyclopaedia of Anthropology: Anthropology Beyond Text. Callan, H. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
• Alexander, C. (2015). Central Asia, Anthropology of. In International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences (Second Edition). Wright, J. Elsevier. 3: 316-322.
• Alexander, C., Gregson, N. & Gille, Z. (2013). Food waste. In The Handbook of Food Research. Murcott, A., Belasco, W. & Jackson, P. Bloomsbury. 471-485.
• Alexander, C (2013). Soviet and Post-Soviet Planning in Almaty, Kazakhstan. In Public Sector Reform. Massey, A Sage Publications Ltd. 3: 165-181.
• Alexander, C. (2013). The Garden as Occasional Domestic Space. In The Domestic Space Reader. Briganti, C. & Mezei, K. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
• Alexander, C. & Reno, J. (2012). Introduction. In Economies of recycling: the global transformation of materials, values and social relations. Alexander, C. & Reno, J. London New York: Zed Books. 1-34.
• Alexander, C. (2012). Economic valuations and environmental policy (Updated). In A Handbook of Economic Anthropology. Carrier, J. Edward Elgar. 451-468.
• Alexander, C. (2012). Remont: works in progress. In Economies of recycling: the global transformation of materials, values and social relations. Alexander, C. & Reno, J. Zed Books. 255-275.
• Alexander, C. (2010). The Third Sector. In The Human Economy: a citizen's guide. Hart, K., Laville, J-L. & Cattani A. Polity Press. 213-224.
• Alexander, C. (2009). Privatization: jokes, scandal and absurdity in a time of rapid change. In Ethnographies of moral reasoning: living paradoxes of a global age. Sykes, K. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. 43-65.
• Alexander, C. (2009). Illusions of freedom: Polanyi and the third sector. In Market and society: The Great Transformation today. Hann, C. & Hart, K. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 221-239.
• Alexander, C. (2008). Waste under socialism and after: a case-study from Almaty. In Enduring Socialism: Explorations of Revolution and Transformation, Restoration and Continuation. West, H. & Raman, P. Berghahn Books. 148-168.
• Alexander, C. (2007). Almaty: rethinking the public sector. In Urban life in post-Soviet Asia. Alexander, C., Buchli, V. & Humphrey, C. UCL Press (Routledge). 70-101.
• Alexander, C. & Buchli, V. (2007). Introduction. In Urban Life in post-Soviet Asia. Alexander, C., Buchli, V. & Humphrey, C. UCL Press (Routledge). 1-39.
• Alexander, C (2005). Value: Economic Valuations and Environmental Policy. In A Handbook of Economic Anthropology. Carrier, J Edward Elgar Publishing.
• Alexander, C. (2004). Values, Relations and Changing Bodies: Industrial Privatisation in Kazakhstan. In Property in Question: appropriation, recognition and value transformation in the global economy. Humphrey, C. & Verdery, K. Berghahn Books.

Edited book

• Alexander, Catherine & Sosna, Daniel (2022). Thrift and its Paradoxes: From Domestic to Political Economy. Max Planck Studies in Anthropology and Economy. Berghahn Books.
• Alexander, C. & Sanchez, A. (2018). Indeterminacy: waste, value and the imagination. Wyse Series in Social Anthropology, 7. New York Oxford: Berghahn Books.
• Alexander, C. & Reno, J. (2012). Economies of Recycling: The global transformation of materials, values and social relations. London & New York: Zed Books.
• Alexander, C., Buchli, V. & Humphrey, C. (2007). Urban life in post-Soviet Asia. UCL Press (Routledge).

Edited Journal

• Alexander, Catherine (2023). After Failure. Special Issue. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Wiley.
• Alexander, C & O'Hare, Patrick (2020). Technologies of unknowing waste: displacement, depoliticisation and disappearance. Ethnos: Journal of Anthropology, Taylor &Francis.
• Alexander, Catherine, Hojer Bruun, Maja, & Koch, Insa (2018). Moral Economies of Housing. Critique of Anthropology, 38 (2): Sage Publications Ltd.

Journal Article

• Alexander, Catherine (2023). Introduction: Writing failure: knowledge production, temporalities, ethics and traces. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 29(S1): 8-30.
• Alexander, Catherine (2023). Suspending failure: temporalities, ontologies and gigantism in fusion energy development. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 29(S1): 114-132.
• Alexander, Catherine (2022). The Simple Bare Necessities: Scales and Paradoxes of Thrift on a London Public Housing Estate. Comparative Studies in Society and History 64(4): 934-965.
• Alexander, Catherine & O’Hare, Patrick (2020). Waste and its Disguises: Technologies of (Un)knowing. Ethnos: Journal of Anthropology
• Alexander, Catherine (2020). A Chronotope of Expansion: resisting spatio-temporal limits in a Kazakh nuclear town. Ethnos: Journal of Anthropology
• Alexander, Catherine (2020). Cleaning up and moving on: Kazakhstan's 'nuclear renaissance'. Bulletin of the Kazakh National Women's Teacher Training University 4(84): 112-125.
• Alexander, Catherine, Wardle, Huon, Chevalier, Sophie, Gbadamosi, Gabriel, Hann, Chris, Hannerz, Ulf, Hart, Keith, Laterza, Vito, Ortiz, Horacio, Quayson, Ato & Rakopoulous, Theo (2019). A Conversation around Keith Hart: Swimming into the Current of Human Society through History. Cultural Anthropology - Fieldsights
• Alexander, C., Hojer Bruun, M. & Koch, I. (2018). Political Economy Comes Home: On the Moral Economies of Housing. Critique of Anthropology 38(2): 121-139.
• Alexander, C. (2018). Homeless in the Homeland: housing protests in Kazakhstan. Critique of Anthropology 38(2): 204-220.
• Alexander, C. (2017). The meeting as subjunctive form: public/private IT projects in British and Turkish state bureaucracies. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 23(S1): 80-94.
• Catherine Alexander (2016). When Waste Disappears, or More Waste Please! RCC Perspectives: Transformations in Environment and Society 1: 31-39.
• Alexander, C. & Reno, J.O. (2014). From Biopower to Energopolitics in England’s Modern Waste Technology. Anthropological Quarterly 87(2): 335-358.
• Alexander, C. (2010). Wasting the planet. Anthropology Now 2(3): 81-88.
• Alexander, C., Druckman, A., Osinski, C. & Jackson, T. (2009). Use of home food digesters to reduce household waste. Journal of Waste and Resources Management (Institute of Chartered Engineers 162(3): 129-139.
• Alexander, C., Smaje, C., Timlett, R. & Williams, I. (2009). Improving Social technologies for recycling: interfaces, estates, multi-family dwellings and infrastructural deprivation. Proc of Inst of Chartered Engineers. Waste and Resources Management 162(1): 15-28.
• Alexander, C., Curran, A., Smaje, C. & Williams, I. (2009). Evaluation of bulky waste and re-use schemes in England. Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers - Waste and Resource Management 162(3): 141-150.
• Alexander, C. & Smaje, C. (2008). Evaluating third sector re-use organisations in the UK: case studies and analysis of furniture re-use schemes. Resources, Conservation and Recycling 53(5): 719-730.
• Alexander, C. (2008). Waste minimisation and surplus retail food redistribution: an analysis of the FareShare brokering model. Resources, Conservation and Recycling 52: 1290-1298.
• Alexander, C. (2007). Soviet and post-Soviet city planning: a case study from Almaty. Critique of Anthropology 27(2): 165-182.
• Alexander, C. (2006). Rethinking the household and domestic material flows. Warmer Bulletin: journal of sustainable waste management & resource recovery 55: 11-14.
• Alexander, C. & Tatibekov, B. (2006). Characteristics of migration in Kazakhstan. Europe-Asia Journal: society, policy, culture 1(53): 101-7.
• Alexander, C. (2004). The cultures and properties of decaying buildings. Focaal: European Journal of Anthropology 44: 48-60.
• Alexander, C. (2004). Review essay of Michael Brown's Who Own's Cultural Property? Political and Legal Anthropology (PoLAR) 27(2): 113-128.
• Catherine Alexander (2003). Images of the State in Contemporary Turkey. Turkish Area Studies Review 2: 38-40.
• Alexander, C. (2003). Taking Control of Aisha Bibi: nationalist projects and local heritage in Kazakhstan. Kumbez: Space, Time, Architecture 1: 23-32.
• Alexander, C. (2002). The garden as occasional domestic space. Signs: the journal of women, culture and society 27(3): 467-485.
• Alexander, C. (2001). Legal and binding: time, change and long-term transactions. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 7(3): 467-485.
• Alexander, Catherine (2000). The Factory: Fabricating the State. Journal of Material Culture 5(2): 177-195.

Report

• Gregson, N & Alexander, C (2017). What is Waste? Government Office for Science.