Victor Buchli

Victor Buchli is Professor of Material Culture within the Material Culture Group at the Department of Anthropology, University College London (UCL). He is also a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London and serves on the Steering Committee of the Victoria and Albert Research Institute (VARI) and the Galleries and Interpretation Committee of the Geffrye Museum London.

He earned his PhD in Archaeology from Cambridge University in 1996. His academic journey has established him as a leading interdisciplinary scholar bridging anthropology, archaeology, and material culture studies.

Buchli's research spans terrestrial and extraterrestrial environments with groundbreaking work on the material culture of Low Earth Orbit. His ERC Advanced Grant-funded ETHNO-ISS project represents pioneering research in the anthropology of outer space. He also conducts significant research on socialism and post-socialism, focusing on modernist architecture and urbanism in Russia and Kazakhstan, as well as the archaeology of the recent past. His theoretical work critically examines materiality and immateriality through publications like An Archaeology of the Immaterial (Routledge 2015).

His scholarly recognition includes fellowships and major research grants, particularly the substantial ERC Advanced Grant supporting his space anthropology work and EPSRC funding for urban studies research.

Buchli has supervised numerous doctoral students across Anthropology, the Bartlett School of Architecture, and the Slade School of Fine Art. He teaches on the UCL Urban Studies MSc and serves on multiple editorial boards, reflecting his significant contribution to academic discourse in material culture studies.

His fieldwork spans Russia, Britain, and Kazakhstan, and he maintains active collaborations with institutions including the Royal College of Art and the Victoria and Albert Museum. As co-founding editor of Home Cultures, he has shaped scholarly conversations about domestic material culture internationally.