Metadata
Title
Sociocultural Anthropology
Category
undergraduate
UUID
b895874a537c4a3d899694f73912f8e5
Source URL
https://anthro.ucla.edu/subfields/sociocultural-anthropology/
Parent URL
https://anthro.ucla.edu/
Crawl Time
2026-03-11T06:10:40+00:00
Rendered Raw Markdown
# Sociocultural Anthropology

**Source**: https://anthro.ucla.edu/subfields/sociocultural-anthropology/
**Parent**: https://anthro.ucla.edu/

[## [Hannah Appel](https://anthro.ucla.edu/person/hannah-appel/)

Associate Professor and Associate Director, Institute on Inequality + Democracy](https://anthro.ucla.edu/person/hannah-appel/)

**Research Interests:**

The anthropology of transnational capitalism and finance; finance, debt and debtors’ unions; Africa in global capitalism; the economic imagination; anti-capitalist and abolitionist social movements

**Subfield:**

Sociocultural Anthropology

#### Contact Information

**Email:** [happel@anthro.ucla.edu](mailto:happel@anthro.ucla.edu "happel@anthro.ucla.edu")
\
**Office:** 318E Haines Hall
\

[## [Andrew Apter](https://anthro.ucla.edu/person/andrew-apter/)

Professor](https://anthro.ucla.edu/person/andrew-apter/)

**Research Interests:**

West Africa (Yoruba, Nigeria), African Diaspora (Haiti, Dominican Republic, Cuba), history of anthropology, social theory

**Subfield:**

African History and World History

#### Contact Information

**Email:** [aapter@history.ucla.edu](mailto:aapter@history.ucla.edu "aapter@history.ucla.edu")
\
**Office:** 6265 Bunche Hall
\

[## [Aomar Boum](https://anthro.ucla.edu/person/aomar-boum/)

Professor, Maurice Amado Endowed Chair in Sephardic Studies](https://anthro.ucla.edu/person/aomar-boum/)

**Research Interests:**

Ethnic and religious minorities; Islam; anthropology of religion, history, youth, and festival; Holocaust; sociology of Morocco; historiography; Morocco; North Africa; sub-Saharan Africa; Middle East

**Subfield:**

Sociocultural Anthropology

#### Contact Information

**Email:** [aboum@anthro.ucla.edu](mailto:aboum@anthro.ucla.edu "aboum@anthro.ucla.edu")
\
**Office:** 316B Haines Hall
\

[## [Jessica Cattelino](https://anthro.ucla.edu/person/jessica-cattelino/)

Professor](https://anthro.ucla.edu/person/jessica-cattelino/)

**Research Interests:**

The contemporary United States. Water and environment. Indigeneity and settler colonialism. The anthropology of citizenship, sovereignty, and nation. Money and value. Feminist critical university studies. The Florida Everglades.

**Subfield:**

Sociocultural Anthropology

#### Contact Information

**Email:** [jesscatt@anthro.ucla.edu](mailto:jesscatt@anthro.ucla.edu "jesscatt@anthro.ucla.edu")
\
**Office:** 397 Haines Hall
\

[## [Jason De León](https://anthro.ucla.edu/person/jason-de-leon/)

Professor](https://anthro.ucla.edu/person/jason-de-leon/)

**Research Interests:**

Violence; materiality; Latino migration; forensic science; archaeology of the contemporary; photoethnography

**Subfield:**

Archaeology and Sociocultural Anthropology

#### Contact Information

**Email:** [jdeleon@ucla.edu](mailto:jdeleon@ucla.edu "jdeleon@ucla.edu")
\
**Office:** 364 Haines Hall
\

[## [Alan Page Fiske](https://anthro.ucla.edu/person/alan-page-fiske/)

Professor](https://anthro.ucla.edu/person/alan-page-fiske/)

**Research Interests:**

Psychological anthropology, social theory, social relationships, social/moral emotions, methodology; Africa

**Subfield:**

Psychological and Sociocultural Anthropology

#### Contact Information

**Email:** [afiske@ucla.edu](mailto:afiske@ucla.edu "afiske@ucla.edu")
\
**Office:** 308 Haines Hall
\

[## [Akhil Gupta](https://anthro.ucla.edu/person/akhil-gupta/)

Professor](https://anthro.ucla.edu/person/akhil-gupta/)

**Research Interests:**

Ethnography of information technology, the state and development, anthropology of food, environmental anthropology, space and place, history of anthropology, applied anthropology; India and South Asia

**Subfield:**

Sociocultural Anthropology

#### Contact Information

**Email:** [akgupta@anthro.ucla.edu](mailto:akgupta@anthro.ucla.edu "akgupta@anthro.ucla.edu")
\
**Office:** 324A Haines Hall
\

[## [Laurie Kain Hart](https://anthro.ucla.edu/person/laurie-kain-hart/)

Professor, Department Chair, & Co-Director of Center for European and Russian Studies](https://anthro.ucla.edu/person/laurie-kain-hart/)

**Research Interests:**

Civil war, violence, segregation, borders; urban anthropology; space, architecture, art, material and visual culture; medical and psychoanalytic anthropology; ethnicity and religion; kinship, gender and social theory; Greece, circum-Mediterranean area, inner-city US

**Subfield:**

Sociocultural Anthropology

#### Contact Information

**Email:** [lkainhart@ucla.edu](mailto:lkainhart@ucla.edu "lkainhart@ucla.edu")
\
**Office:** 307 Haines Hall
\

[## [Christopher Kelty](https://anthro.ucla.edu/person/christopher-kelty/)

Professor](https://anthro.ucla.edu/person/christopher-kelty/)

**Research Interests:**

Science and technology studies, specifically internet culture and history; intellectual property; the public sphere; free and open source software; public domains; commons; authorship and ownership; the history and philosophy of science and technology in the US, Europe and India

**Subfield:**

Sociocultural Anthropology

#### Contact Information

**Email:** [ckelty@socgen.ucla.edu](mailto:ckelty@socgen.ucla.edu "ckelty@socgen.ucla.edu")
\
**Office:** 3318 Life Sciences Bldg (LSB)
\

[## [Nancy E. Levine](https://anthro.ucla.edu/person/nancy-e-levine/)

Professor](https://anthro.ucla.edu/person/nancy-e-levine/)

**Research Interests:**

Family and marriage; multi-species anthropology; pastoralism, sedenterization, and resettlement; political economy, development, and social change, gender; Himalayas, Tibet and Central Asia

**Subfield:**

Sociocultural Anthropology

#### Contact Information

**Email:** [nelevine@anthro.ucla.edu](mailto:nelevine@anthro.ucla.edu "nelevine@anthro.ucla.edu")
\
**Office:** 395 Haines Hall
\

[## [Purnima Mankekar](https://anthro.ucla.edu/person/purnima-mankekar/)

Professor](https://anthro.ucla.edu/person/purnima-mankekar/)

**Research Interests:**

Digital media studies, Big Data, IT, algorithms in social life; “Virtual” Anthropology; Theories of Affect; Film and Television Studies; Feminist Anthropology and Ethnography; Postcolonial and Women of Color feminism; Queer of Color Critique. South Asian America, South Asia

**Subfield:**

Sociocultural Anthropology

#### Contact Information

**Email:** [mankekar@ucla.edu](mailto:mankekar@ucla.edu "mankekar@ucla.edu")
\
**Office:** 325 Haines Hall
\

[## [Kyeyoung Park 박계영](https://anthro.ucla.edu/person/kyeyoung-park/)

Professor, Korea Times-Hankook Ilbo Endowed Chair in Korean-American Studies](https://anthro.ucla.edu/person/kyeyoung-park/)

**Research Interests:**

Urban anthropology; Inequality (e.g., race, class, and gender); identity; migration/diaspora; transnational and global processes; social change and social movement; critical and multicultural theory; Korean/Asian American Community; Korean/Asian Diaspora; Koreans/Asians in Latin America

**Subfield:**

Sociocultural Anthropology

#### Contact Information

**Email:** [kpark@anthro.ucla.edu](mailto:kpark@anthro.ucla.edu "kpark@anthro.ucla.edu")
\
**Office:** 383 Haines Hall
\

[## [David Shorter](https://anthro.ucla.edu/person/david-shorter/)

Professor](https://anthro.ucla.edu/person/david-shorter/)

**Subfield:**

Sociocultural Anthropology

#### Contact Information

**Email:** [shorter@ucla.edu](mailto:shorter@ucla.edu "shorter@ucla.edu")
\
**Office:** 130F Kaufman Hall
\

[## [Susan Slyomovics](https://anthro.ucla.edu/person/susan-slyomovics/)

Distinguished Professor](https://anthro.ucla.edu/person/susan-slyomovics/)

**Research Interests:**

Gender; human rights; folklore and material culture; visual anthropology; Middle East and North Africa

**Subfield:**

Sociocultural Anthropology

#### Contact Information

**Email:** [ssly@anthro.ucla.edu](mailto:ssly@anthro.ucla.edu "ssly@anthro.ucla.edu")
\
**Office:** 312 Haines Hall
\

[## [Shannon Speed](https://anthro.ucla.edu/person/shannon-speed/)

Professor & Director of American Indian Studies Center](https://anthro.ucla.edu/person/shannon-speed/)

**Research Interests:**

Legal anthropology; indigenous rights; human rights; indigenous migration; gender; neoliberalism, race and ethnicity; sovereignty/autonomy; activist research methodologies

**Subfield:**

Sociocultural Anthropology

#### Contact Information

**Email:** [sspeed@aisc.ucla.edu](mailto:sspeed@aisc.ucla.edu "sspeed@aisc.ucla.edu")
\
**Office:** 3220A Campbell Hall
\

[## [Bharat Venkat](https://anthro.ucla.edu/person/bharat-venkat/)

Associate Professor](https://anthro.ucla.edu/person/bharat-venkat/)

**Research Interests:**

Science, Medicine, and the Environment; Climate Change; Race; Design; Historical Anthropology; South Asia

**Subfield:**

Sociocultural and Medical Anthropology

#### Contact Information

**Email:** [bvenkat@ucla.edu](mailto:bvenkat@ucla.edu "bvenkat@ucla.edu")
\

[## [Yunxiang Yan 阎云翔](https://anthro.ucla.edu/person/yunxiang-yan-%e9%98%8e%e4%ba%91%e7%bf%94/)

Distinguished Professor](https://anthro.ucla.edu/person/yunxiang-yan-%e9%98%8e%e4%ba%91%e7%bf%94/)

**Research Interests:**

Social change and development, family and kinship, cultural globalization, morality, the individual and individualization

**Subfield:**

Sociocultural Anthropology

#### Contact Information

**Email:** [yan@anthro.ucla.edu](mailto:yan@anthro.ucla.edu "yan@anthro.ucla.edu")
\
**Office:** 366 Haines Hall
\