Research

Simon Coleman's PhD was based on a charismatic Christian group based in Sweden (Livets Ord) that developed possibly the largest Bible School in Europe, as well as a global network of congregations and ministries. Over the last 20 years he has continued to work on the group and has developed interests in globalisation, religious language and ritual, and forms of worship mediated through such technology as video and the Internet. Work on conservative Protestantism has also prompted a side-interest in Creation Science and 'Intelligent Design'. Simon also spends much of his time looking at Christian pilgrimage. Since the 1990s he has been engaged in carrying out fieldwork at Walsingham, Norfolk - a premier Christian pilgrimage site in UK and a centre for debates over the contemporary role of Catholicism, gender and religion, and the connections (or otherwise) between tourism and pilgrimage. Some of this work has been carried out with an art historian, and has led to an interest in the materiality and aesthetics of religious expression.

Recently, Simon has been working with other anthropologists, architects and medics in work examining the uses and constructions of space in National Health Service Hospitals. This work has continued his interests in aesthetics, linking it with broader notions of the politics of health and well-being. It has also led to a project examining the role of hospital chaplains in the NHS. His newest project is a collaboration with colleagues in Portugal and Holland, looking at 'diasporic' African Pentecostal congregations in Europe. Simon's focus is on Nigerian congregations based in London, but with global networks. Alongside these research projects Simon has maintained an interest in the culture of learning and teaching within anthropology, and he is currently working with Paul Basu, Brighton Museum & Art Gallery, The Higher Education Academy Subject Network for Sociology, Anthropology, Politics (C-SAP) and the Royal Anthropological Institute on projects examining how anthropology can be learned and taught beyond universities.

So a summary of Simon's interests might be: pilgrimage, conservative Protestantism, biomedical discourses, tourism, ritual, mobility, space and place, diasporas, friendship, aesthetics, art; Sweden, the UK, the US, Nigeria.

Doctoral Students:
Steve Colburn - Authenticity and Performance in Contemporary Music

Lauren Greenwood - Changing conceptions of identity in military stabilisation support operations

Katrin Maier - African Pentecostal congregations in London

Kate Nielsen - Competing Conceptions of Identity among Irish-Canadians

Anna Stewart - Gender, Christian Evangelicalism and the Internet

Matluba Wakefield - Women and Religious Practices in the Post-Soviet Period in Uzbekistan

Andrea Szkil - Forensic Specialists’ Work with Human Remains in Post-War Bosnia