Harri Englund (born 1966) is Professor of

Social Anthropology Social anthropology is the study of patterns of behaviour in human societies and cultures. It is the dominant constituent of anthropology throughout the United Kingdom and much of Europe, where it is distinguished from cultural anthropology. In t ...

at the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

, Fellow of the

British Academy The British Academy for the Promotion of Historical, Philosophical and Philological Studies is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences. It was established in 1902 and received its royal charter in the sa ...

and of

Churchill College, Cambridge Churchill College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. It has a primary focus on science, engineering and technology, but retains a strong interest in the arts ...

. Englund studied

anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, society, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including archaic humans. Social anthropology studies patterns of behav ...

at the

University of Helsinki The University of Helsinki (, ; UH) is a public university in Helsinki, Finland. The university was founded in Turku in 1640 as the Royal Academy of Åbo under the Swedish Empire, and moved to Helsinki in 1828 under the sponsorship of Alexander ...

and the

University of Manchester The University of Manchester is a public university, public research university in Manchester, England. The main campus is south of Manchester city centre, Manchester City Centre on Wilmslow Road, Oxford Road. The University of Manchester is c ...

. After holding academic posts in the United Kingdom,

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

and

Finland Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...

, Englund moved to the University of Cambridge in 2004. He was promoted to professorship in 2014 and elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2019. Englund's field research has taken place in

Malawi Malawi, officially the Republic of Malawi, is a landlocked country in Southeastern Africa. It is bordered by Zambia to the west, Tanzania to the north and northeast, and Mozambique to the east, south, and southwest. Malawi spans over and ...

Mozambique Mozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique, is a country located in Southeast Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west, and Eswatini and South Afr ...

Zambia Zambia, officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern and East Africa. It is typically referred to being in South-Central Africa or Southern Africa. It is bor ...

and Finland. His publications have addressed topics such as

human rights Human rights are universally recognized Morality, moral principles or Social norm, norms that establish standards of human behavior and are often protected by both Municipal law, national and international laws. These rights are considered ...

humanitarianism Humanitarianism is an ideology centered on the value of human life, whereby humans practice benevolent treatment and provide assistance to other humans to reduce suffering and improve the conditions of humanity for moral, altruistic, and emotion ...

, and moral and political thought in the

Chichewa Chewa ( ; also known as Nyanja ) is a Bantu language spoken in Malawi and a recognised minority in Zambia and Mozambique. The noun class prefix ''chi-'' is used for languages, so the language is often called or Chinyanja. In Malawi, the name wa ...

language. He has also studied the racial and humanitarian politics of

Christian mission A Christian mission is an organized effort to carry on evangelism, in the name of the Christian faith. Missions involve sending individuals and groups across boundaries, most commonly geographical boundaries. Sometimes individuals are sent and a ...

s in 19th-century Malawi including the missionary

David Clement Scott David Clement Ruffelle Scott (23 April 1853 – 18 October 1907) was a Scottish born polymath who became a Church of Scotland missionary in Africa. He was the supervisor in Blantyre until he was relieved in 1898. He then went to Kenya in 1901 wher ...

. In 2006, the

Royal Anthropological Institute The Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland (RAI) is a long-established anthropological organisation, and Learned Society, with a global membership. Its remit includes all the component fields of anthropology, such as biolo ...

awarded the Amaury Talbot Prize to his book ''Prisoners of Freedom: Human Rights and the African Poor''.

Books

* ''Visions for Racial Equality: David Clement Scott and the Struggle for Justice in Nineteenth-Century Malawi.'' * ''Gogo Breeze: Zambia's Radio Elder and the Voices of Free Speech.'' * ''Human Rights and African Airwaves: Mediating Equality on the Chichewa Radio.'' * ''Christianity and Public Culture in Africa.'' * ''Prisoners of Freedom: Human Rights and the African Poor.'' * ''Rights and the Politics of Recognition in Africa.'' * ''From War to Peace on the Mozambique-Malawi Borderland.'' * ''A Democracy of Chameleons: Politics and Culture in the New Malawi.''

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Englund, Harri 1966 births Social anthropologists Academics of the University of Cambridge Fellows of the British Academy Fellows of Churchill College, Cambridge Alumni of the University of Manchester Finnish anthropologists Writers from Helsinki Living people