John Harries

Dr. John Harries is a Senior Lecturer and Director of Learning and Teaching at the University of Edinburgh's School of Social and Political Science. He earned his PhD in Social Anthropology from the same institution in 2002 and has held continuous academic positions since, including roles at the University of Glasgow and Edinburgh's Centre of Canadian Studies. His work bridges anthropology, heritage studies, and indigenous rights.

Harries' research examines time, materiality, and memory in postcolonial contexts—particularly Newfoundland's Beothuk heritage—with emphasis on human remains ethics. He co-founded the Bones Collective, exploring the emotive presence of ancestral remains in museums. Current projects include TRACES (EU Horizon 2020) on contentious heritage, and a Canada-UK initiative on repatriating Indigenous ancestral remains. He is developing work on urban human-cat relationships.

His publications focus on settler colonialism, heritage politics, and ethics, with recurring themes of:

• Material traces of violence and memory
• Indigenous-settler reconciliation
• Ethical curation of human remains
• Algorithmic governance in public services

Harries supervises postgraduate research in social anthropology, specializing in indigeneity, heritage conflict, and interspecies relationships. He has led grants including Horizon 2020 collaborations and Edinburgh-Toronto partnerships. No awards or direct student advisees are documented in available sources.