Petra Tjitske Kalshoven
Petra Tjitske is a Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology based in the School of Social Sciences at The University of Manchester. Her research draws on insights from ecological anthropology, materiality, and performance studies to explore skilled manifestations of human curiosity, simulation, and rhetoric. She is the author of Crafting ‘the Indian’: Knowledge, Desire, and Play in Indianist Reenactment (Berghahn Books, 2012). Petra Tjitske currently leads a multi-sited ESRC-funded project, ‘Mimesis in action: nuclear decommissioning as conceptual playground for societal and ecological future making’ (2022 – 2026), pursuing her interest in human engagement with models, landscapes, and temporalities in areas of long-term nuclear waste management. Read more about Petra Tjitske. Sarah O’Brien is working with Petra Tjitske on her new ESRC-funded project Mimesis in Action. The project investigates future-making in areas of nuclear decommissioning and nuclear waste management. Read more about Sarah O’Brien.

The fieldwork of attending a conference
Presenting at a conference can be part of doing anthropological fieldwork, even when ‘the field’ seems far away.

Ethnography and energy
Petra Tjitske Kalshoven has just begun fieldwork for an ethnographic project on nuclear decommissioning at Sellafield in West Cumbria.

Holistic decommissioning in the nuclear industry
Led by The University of Manchester, this project addresses current debates in the decommissioning of nuclear facilities and storage of nuclear waste in the UK.