The GENERAL BOARD beg leave to report to the University as follows:
1. The Department of Social Anthropology at Cambridge is a leading centre of the subject in Britain, focusing on innovative research. Themes of current research in the Department include: new forms of kinship and family reproduction; bioethics; the social implications of technology; shamanism and medicinal plants; new religious movements; the political and economic transformations of post-socialist societies; new legal forms and institutions; cultural creativity; and artefact-based theory. The Department undertakes collaborative, innovative, and cross-disciplinary research in a wide range of areas with a special emphasis on engaging researchers in host countries, and its staff are actively engaged in research projects involving other institutions, both within and outside the University. The Department's research is intimately linked with its teaching programmes through optional papers in Parts IIA and IIB of the Archaeological and Anthropological Tripos and research seminars for all levels of graduate students and academic visitors led by teaching staff.
2. Collaborative anthropology describes the intellectual interaction between anthropologists and the creators of knowledge among the people they study. Traditionally, anthropology has been carried out by trained scholars from the first world undertaking fieldwork in another place, gathering materials, and then returning to write up the results. This model is no longer thought to be appropriate as it fails to recognize the collaborative process of anthropological research and the contributions of the interlocutors. From an ethical point of view, it should be replaced by a practice that encourages and gives due weight to interaction and critique between different cultures and systems of knowledge.
3. A opportunity to further develop work in this area has now arisen as the Sigrid Rausing Foundation wishes to endow a Professorship in the Department of Social Anthropology, to be called the Sigrid Rausing Professorship of Collaborative Anthropology. It is further proposed that the first holder of the Professorship should be Professor Caroline Humphrey, who holds the Professorship of Asian Anthropology established for her tenure by Grace 2 of 28 October 1998. Subject to the approval of this Report the University Lectureship, held in abeyance during Professor Humphrey's tenure of the personal Professorship, will be suppressed. The Foundation has generously agreed to donate to the University the sum of £2m towards the costs of endowing this Professorship. The Foundation has a tradition of funding projects in this area and wishes to make contribution to the development of collaborative anthropology in the modern world. Professor Humphrey's research interests include theories of ritual and religion, socialist/post-socialist economy and society, political forms and the political imagination in East Asia; she welcomes the change in title. Future elections to the Professorship would be made by an ad hoc Board of Electors.
4. The Council of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, and the Faculty Board of Archaeology and Anthropology have formally recommended the establishment of this Professorship. The benefaction will also enable the School of Humanities and Social Sciences to release some additional funding to the Department of Social Anthropology to further strengthen the academic work of the Department and this will offer an outstanding opportunity to develop further its collaborative activities with other disciplines and research groups across the University.
5. The General Board recommend:
I. That a Sigrid Rausing Professorship of Collaborative Anthropology be established in the University, for Professor Caroline Humphrey in the first instance, from 1 January 2006, placed in Schedule B of the Statutes, and assigned to the Department of Social Anthropology.
II. That the regulations for the Sigrid Rausing Professorship of Collaborative Anthropology, as set out in the Schedule to this Report, be approved.
| 9 November 2005 | ALISON RICHARD, Vice-Chancellor | M. J. DAUNTON | ROGER PARKER |
| JOHN BELL | R. H. FRIEND | JOHN SISSONS | |
| TOM BLUNDELL | RICHARD HUNTER | LAURA WALSH | |
| WILLIAM BROWN | D. W. B. MACDONALD | I. H. WHITE | |
| H. A. CHASE | MELVEENA MCKENDRICK |
1. The sum received from the Sigrid Rausing Foundation towards the endowment of the Sigrid Rausing Professorship of Collaborative Anthropology shall form a fund called the Sigrid Rausing Fund.
2. If and whenever the income of the Fund exceeds the amount required for the payment of the stipend, national insurance, pension contributions, and associated indirect costs of the Professor payable by the University, the excess of the income over that amount shall be applied to support the work of the Professor in such a manner as may be approved by the General Board on the recommendation of the Head of the Department of Social Anthropology.
3. Any unexpended income in a financial year shall, in any subsequent year, be expended in accordance with Regulation 2.