Peter Locke

Professor Locke is a cultural and medical anthropologist focused on bringing ethnographic evidence to the comparative study of global health and humanitarian intervention in post-conflict societies. His field research, writing, and teaching all explore and critique the intersection of humanitarian work and reigning modes of evidence production in contexts of contentious local politics and lingering histories of conflict and mass violence.

Prof. Locke’s doctoral research in Bosnia-Herzegovina examined how the urban poor cope with traumatic histories and rebuild their lives in a new post-war state and economy; more specifically, he charted the impact and sustainability of humanitarian psychiatry and psychosocial support services for war survivors in Sarajevo. More recently, he has accompanied small undergraduate teams to Sierra Leone to conduct ethnographic research on the encounter between the booming transnational discourses and practices of “global health” and local understandings of and struggles for healing, care, and survival.