The Centre for Social Anthropology and Computing (CSAC) aims to advance 'ordinary' anthropology through the exploration, development and application of computational approaches to research problems across the range of anthropology including the humanities, social sciences and sciences. CSAC is presently part of HRAF Advanced Research Centres (hrafARC), affiliated with the Human Relations Area Files, Yale University.

CSAC Partners

Visiting Fellows, Members and Visitors : H. Russ Bernard (U Florida), Murray Leaf (U Texas), Douglas White (UC Irvine), Dwight Read (UCLA), Gerald McCormack (Cook Islands Natural Heritage), Bertus Little (Dean of Research, Tarleton State), Daniel Sosna and Lenka Brunclikova (University of West Bohemia), Petr Vasat (Czech Academy of Sciences). Visits. Human Relations Area Files (Yale), University of Durham, UCLA, Tarleton State University, Stanford University, University of Texas, Dallas and Austin, University of West Bohemia, Stockholm Environment Agency (Oxford), Ritsumeikan and Asia Pacific Universities (Bepu, Japan), Cook Islands, Canterbury University (Christchurch), University of Otago (Dunedin), University of Paris/LAS, Max Planc Institute (Halle), All Souls Oxford. Demian is on secondment to the Australian National University for 2014, mostly for reasons not involving CSAC, however she is contributing to CSAC-supported research while there.

External: a point of interface for individuals and organisations outside Kent.  Branding for CSAC's active role and leadership in collaborations for research, applications and web-based dissemination incl. Royal Anthropological Institute (RAI, Anthropological Index Online, Archives Committee), American Anthropological Association (AAA, Committee on the Future of Publications and Electronic Publications, SAS  Editor), Human Relations Area Files (HRAF, Yale) redesign of web interface and data services for which Fischer was elected Vice President of HRAF in 2013, U. California Irvine for the Complex Social Science Supercomputer Gateway (CoSSci), for which Fischer has been invited to be a NSF co-applicant for the follow-on infrastructure grant, the Kinsources.net project founded by CSAC and now developing in collaboration with Laboratoitre d'Anthropologie Sociale, University of Nanterre, the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales and the Centre National de Recherche Scientifique, with long term funding by the French National Research Agency, the KNeTs (Knowledge Elicitation Tools) project co-developed with  the Stockholm Environment Institute, and associations with many smaller organisations and projects. CSAC is currently engaged with four major external collaborations, and a number of smaller ones. Fischer has been a collaborator in many such external projects, and generally CSAC affiliated staff, fellows and students have also been active in these projects and others. For example, Henig’s activities in organising RC and EU funded workshops,  joint publication, journal editorship (i.e. History and Anthropology), online dictionary of vernacular terms of illicit economic practices widely publicised by the BBC magazine,  and roles in international academic organisations (such as contributing editor to the AAA’s flagship newsletter Anthropology News), and building research ties to Tajik Academy of Sciences, who are hosting his current Wenner-Gren award. Dave Robertsis  taking the lead with UK and other European law enforcement and NGOs relating to illegal wildlife and wildlife product sales, and most recently consulting with the Child Protection unit on using software derived from past CSAC research and planning new projects to improve capacity in these areas. Of the two newest members, Melissa Demian is on secondment to the Australian National University working on socio-legal research relating to PNG, and is Co-I on an ESRC grant exploring, in part, the use of computationally based tools to support socio-legal field research in PNG as part of a current ESRC project on which Fischer and she are Co-Investigators. Oskar Burger, is organising a workshop with collaborators at Imperial College and Oxford to advance research on ecological networks and the role of energy in these. Janet Bagg, an honorary research fellow, is liaison to the RAI for the Anthropological Index Online.  CSAC operates or external servers that host services for collaborative research projects and organisations in the UK (RAI), Europe (Kinsources), North America (UCI,HRAF), Pakistan(Post Office) and the Cook Islands (Natural Heritage), among others.

Internal: reflected in collaborative research and contributions CSAC makes to individual research outside the Centre within School research/teaching programmes. the MSc in Ethnobiology, Visual Anthropology and Social Anthropology reference CSAC in their internal and external declarations as does the REF, in which CSAC contributes to research infrastructure. Fischer and Henig work with many MA/MSc and Research students to help them use computational tools in their projects, and relate this in modules such as PG Research Methods. Fischer teaches a unique Social Computing module that has grown from 10 students to over 30 students in three years. The School is moving towards a multi-disciplinary collaborative research model, which will benefit from the collective resources we maintain. The Centre's membership now formally includes members from DICE and Biological Anthropology, as well as Social Anthropology. Fischer co-supervises two DICE research students, and Henig and Alexiades one, who draw on Centre support for their research. We hope to gain new members from DICE & Biological Anthropology.