Dr David Mills

After reading for a PhD in Social Anthropology at the School of Oriental and African Studies, carrying out fieldwork in Uganda, I have held lectureships in four different disciplines (Development Studies, Anthropology, Cultural Studies and now Education) at Oxford (1997 to 1998), Manchester (1998 to 2000), Birmingham (2000 to 2006) and Oxford again (2006 to date).

I also worked as the anthropology co-ordinator at C-SAP (Centre for Sociology, Anthropology and Politics), part of the Higher Education Academy network, between 2000 and 2006.

My work brings together an anthropological training, a commitment to historical method and a fascination with social theory and its politics. This epistemological brew feeds my writing and teaching on the social science ‘knowledge economy’, its pedagogies, and its changing relationship to universities and governance practices, in the UK and internationally.

I have a number of research students, and am keen to promote ethnographic methods (broadly defined) in the study of educational institutions. Several of my current students are pursuing ethnographic case-studies, and I work to combine using ethnographic methods. Please get in touch if you would like to explore an idea for doctoral research, whether or not it relates to my own immediate research interests.

• Patrick Alexander is completing an ethnographic study of an Oxford secondary school, looking at issues of age and identity.
• Machi Sato is conducting ethnographic research into faculty development in Japanese Universities.
• Aly Remtullah is looking at the institutional role accorded Muslim chaplains on North American campuses.
• Zuki Karpinska is exploring the politics of standardization within international humanitarian networks.
• Mahmoud Nattou is working with participants on the ‘Teach for Lebanon’ programme, using exploratory narratives and autoethnographies to explore their emerging pedagogic identities.

I spend 50% of my time working across the dozen or so social science departments in the University. My formal role is to help departments prepare postgraduate students and contract researchers for academic careers by developing their teaching and professional skills, as much as their research skills. This involves promoting the interests and views of postgraduates and research staff within departments. Following the collegiate University’s principle of subsidiarity, I have encouraged departments to develop their own approaches to these problems. Drawing on the financial resources made available by the Centre of Excellence, nearly all have chosen to create new part-time ‘Graduate Teaching Coordinator’ roles, appointing senior graduate students or existing faculty. As well as supporting these new post-holders, I convene divisional activities, events and reading groups. This decentralized approach helps those involved with doctoral education to interpret policy initiatives in locally appropriate ways. It acknowledges the situated expertise that is a key strength of university teaching. There is an active research project associated with this initiative http://www.learning.ox.ac.uk/cetl.php?page=196

Research

My research draws on anthropology and history to develop historically-informed accounts of the social sciences, their pedagogies, and their relationship to universities and the state. Between 1999 and 2002 I held a Leverhulme Special Research Fellowship, conducting research into the political history of social anthropology.

Related recent research into change within UK Higher Education includes an ESRC-funded study of training and careers in Social Anthropology. I also led the “Demographic Review of the Social Sciences”, published in 2006 by the ESRC, and available at www.esrc.ac.uk.

I am currently involved in research into the future of ethnography, academic career structures in the social sciences, the changing nature of African academic practice. I am also planning a political history of the social sciences over the last 40 years.

Publications

Books and edited books

• Mills, D. (2008). Difficult Folk: A political history of social anthropology. Oxford: Berghahn.
• Mills, D., & Harris, M. (Eds.). (2004). Teaching Rites and Wrongs: Universities and the making of Anthropologists. Birmingham: C-SAP.
• Ntarangwi, M., Mills, D., & Babiker, M. (Eds.). (2006). African Anthropologies: History, Critique and Practice. London: Zed Publishers.
• James, W. & Mills, D (2004) The Qualities of Time: Anthropological Approaches. ASA Monograph Series. Oxford, Berg Books

Selected Journal Articles and Book Chapters

• Mills, D. (1999). ‘The nation’s valiant fighters against illiteracy’: Locations of learning and progress.Social Analysis, 43(1), 3 -17.
• Mills, D. (2001). ‘We’ll show them a real discipline’: Anthropology, Sociology and the politics of academic identity. Anthropology in Action, 8(1), 34-41.
• Mills, D. (2002). Anthropology at the end of the British Empire: The rise and fall of the Colonial Social Science Research Council 1944 -1962. Revue d’Histoire des Sciences Humaines, 6, 161 -188.
• Mills, D. (2002). Globalising Rights. Anthropologymatters.com, 4(1).
• Mills, D. (2003). ‘Like a horse in blinkers’? A political history of anthropology’s research ethics. In P. Caplan (Ed.), The ethics of anthropology: Debates and Dilemmas (pp. 37 -54). London: Routledge.
• Mills, D. (2003). Professionalising or popularising Anthropology? A brief history of anthropology’s scholarly associations in  the UK. Anthropology Today, 19(5), 8 -13.
• Mills, D. (2003). Quantifying the discipline: Some anthropology statistics from the UK. Anthropology Today, 19(3), 19 -22.
• Mills, D. (2003). Teaching the ‘uncomfortable science’: social anthropology in British universities. In D. Drackle, I. Edgar & T. Schippers (Eds.), Educational histories of European Social Anthropology. Oxford: Berghahn.
• Mills, D. (2004). The Bologna Process and European Higher Education. Anthropology Today, 20(6), 22-23.
• Mills, D. (2004). The New African Higher Education? African Affairs, 103(413), 667 -675.
• Mills, D. (2005). Made in Manchester? Methods and Myths in Disciplinary History. Social Analysis, 49(3), 129 -143
• Mills, D. (2006). Dinner at Claridges? Anthropology and the captains of industry 1947 -1955. In S. Pink (Ed.), Applications of Anthropology: Professional Anthropology in the twenty-first century. Oxford: Berghahn.
• Mills, D. (2006). How not to be a colonial ‘house pet’: Audrey Richards and the    East African Institute of Social Research. In M. Ntarangwi, D. Mills & M. Babiker (eds.), African Anthropologies: History, Critique and Practice. London: Zed, in association with CODESRIA.
• Mills, D. (2006). Juggling Acts: Teaching and the disciplinary vocation. In D. Carter & M. Lord (Eds.),Engagements with learning and teaching in Higher Education. Birmingham: C-SAP.
• Mills, D. (2006). Life on the Hill: Students and the social history of Makerere. Africa, 76(2), 247 -266.
• Mills, D. (2006). Those who can….? Teaching as a postgraduate. In N. Gilbert (Ed.), From Postgraduate to Social Scientist: A Guide to Key Skills. London: Sage.
• Mills, D. (2007). ‘A major disaster to Anthropology….’? Oxford and the Radcliffe-Brown years. In P. Riviere (Ed.), A history of Anthropology at the University of Oxford. Oxford: Berghahn.
• Mills, D. (2008). Internationalisation and the Social Sciences. Editor of special issue of Learning and Teaching: The International Journal of Higher Education in the Social Sciences 1(1), viii – xii.
• Mills, D. 2009. ‘Making Sense of Doctoral Training Reforms in the Social Sciences’. International Journal of Researcher Development 1 (1): 71 -83.
• Mills, D. 2010. ‘Anthropology and Related Disciplines: Part of the Family?’ In: Handbook of Sociocultural Anthropology, ed. J. Carrier & D. Gewertz. Oxford: Berg.
• Mills, D. 2010. ‘Comings and Goings: Disciplinary Ideologies and Employment Trajectories’. In: New Visions of Academic Practice: Preparing for Careers in the Social Sciences, ed. Lynn McAlpine and Gerlese Åkerlind. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Co-authored publications

• Mills, D., & Gibb, R. (2001). Centre and Periphery: An interview with Paul Willis. Cultural Anthropology, 16(3), 388 – 414.
• Mills, D., & Gibb, R. (2001). An Interview with Adam Kuper. Social Anthropology, 9(2), 207 -216.
• Mills, D., & Huber, M. (2005). Anthropology and the Educational ‘Trading Zone’: Disciplinarity, pedagogy and professionalism. Arts and Humanities in Higher Education, 4(1), 5 -28.
• Mills, D., Jepson, A., Coxon, T., Easterby-Smith, M., Hawkins, P., & Spencer, J. (2006). Demographic Review of the Social Sciences. Swindon: Economic and Social Research Council.
• Mills, D., & Ssewakiryanga, R. (2002). ‘That Beijing Thing’: Challenging Transnational Feminisms in Kampala. Gender, Place and Culture: A journal of Feminist Geography, 9(4), 385 -398.
• Mills, D., & Ssewakiryanga, R. (2004). No romance without finance: Masculinities, commodities and HIV in Uganda. In A. Cornwall (Ed.), Readings in Gender in Africa. Oxford: James Currey Ltd.
• Lebeau, Y., & Mills, D. (2008). From ‘crisis’ to ‘transformation’? Shifting orthodoxies of African higher education policy and research. , 1(1), 58 – 88. . Learning and Teaching: The International Journal of Higher Education in the Social Sciences, 1(1), 58-88.