معرفی
Rebecca Empson is Professor of Anthropology and Head of Social Anthropology at University College London, with additional affiliations as Research Associate at Cambridge's Mongolia and Inner Asia Studies Unit (MIASU) and Visiting Fellow at Wolfson College. Her work bridges Mongolian ethnography and broader theoretical questions in personhood, memory, material culture, and economic transformations.
Empson's research explores post-socialist Mongolia through themes like extractive industries, urbanization, and cosmopolitical heritage. She investigates how rural-urban migration reshapes family dynamics and care ethics, and how global-local friction generates novel economic practices. Her ERC-funded 'Emerging Subjects' project (2014–2019) produced monographs, exhibitions, and interdisciplinary collaborations.
Key publications include Life in the Gap (2020) analyzing women's adaptive strategies in crisis contexts, and Harnessing Fortune (2011) on Mongolian concepts of fortune and personhood. She serves as Book Series Editor for UCL/Chicago Press's Economic Exposure in Asia, and holds advisory roles at institutions in Berlin and Switzerland.
Her methodological approach combines longitudinal ethnography, art-science collaboration, and critical political economy. Students under her supervision have explored topics ranging from urban margins in Ulaanbaatar to resource frontiers, funded by ESRC, ERC, and Wenner Gren fellowships.
