Marianna Betti
Position
Postdoctoral fellow
Affiliation
Research
Marianna Betti has completed her PhD in social anthropology from the University of Bergen in 2020. She holds a MPhil in the anthropology of development (2010) from the same institution and a Master (2005) from the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA. Marianna Betti has conducted anthropological fieldwork in Eastern Africa and Europe and her research interests lay in political ecology, the anthropology of oil and energy, development and phenomenology. In her phd research she has explored the recent discovery of hydrocarbons in the region of Turkana in Kenya and how the oil operations had affected social relations at different scales and how disparate groups have respondended to the fast changes brought by the discovery of the oil. Betti's most recent interests are on what forms and social manifestations of energy transition do to social practices, the vast array of conflict arising from, for instance, energy vulnerability and the unequal redistribution of energy resource, and on the life and agency of "hyperobjects" embedded in the "automation turn".
Outreach
Betti, Marianna.
Encounters and expectations: A case of syncretic oil complex in Turkana, Kenya. Workshop. Corporate entanglements: Citizenship, Governance and Transnational Companies at Key Sites of Neoliberal Globalization. Utrecht University, Utrecht, NL. 11-12.12.2018.
Betti, Marianna.
Blood, meat, oil and the generative power of moving resources. EASA 2018: Staying, Moving Settling. Stockholm, SE. 14.-17.08.2018.
Betti, Marianna.
Claiming the 鈥淐radle of Mankind鈥: strategies to power and access amongst oil companies and local political elites in Turkana. American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting 2016. Minneapolis, USA. 16.-20.11.2016.
Betti, Marianna.
Health and Well-being along the Shores of Lake Turkana. MAGic 2015 Conference. Sussex, UK. 09.-11.09.2015.
Betti, Marianna.
Right to Work and Rights at Work: egalitarian practices and paradoxes in Italy in a time of crisis. Second ISP-workshop: The Anthropology of Uncertainty. NTNU, Trondheim, NO. 30.-31.10.2014.
Betti, Marianna.
Endurance and Social Growth among sedenterized Turkana. EASA 2012. Nanterre, FR. 10.-13.07.2012.
Teaching
Fall 2020, course coordinator for SANT105 "Power: its articulations and disguises", 黑料吃瓜资源.
Spring 2018, course coordinator for SANT285-1 "The Anthropology of Oil", 黑料吃瓜资源
Fall 2017, course coordinator for SANT100 "Invitasjon til sosialantropologi", 黑料吃瓜资源
Spring 2016, teaching assistant for SANT102 "Sosialt liv i globalt perspektiv" and SANT220芦Anthropology, Intervention and Development禄, 黑料吃瓜资源.
Fall 2014, teaching assistant AFR1012 鈥淎nthropology of Africa: regional perspectives鈥, NTNU
Spring 2011, teaching assistant SANT215 鈥淐omparative Ethnography鈥 and SANT220 芦Anthropology, Intervention and Development禄, 黑料吃瓜资源.
Fall 2010, teaching assistant SV100 鈥淪ociological Approaches鈥, SANT104 芦Culture, Meaning and Communication禄, and SANT105 芦Expressions and Disguises of Power禄.黑料吃瓜资源.
Fall 2004, teaching assistant ANTHRO8-1 芦Introduction to Anthropology禄. UCLA.
Publications
Conference lecture
Academic literature review
Academic book chapter
Doctoral thesis (PhD)
Lecture
Master鈥檚 thesis
Journal review
Academic article
Media interview
Letter to the editor
Dictionary Entry
2020 (with C. Gianella) "Water". Dictionary entry. In: De Lauri, A. ed. Humanitarianism: Keywords. Brill, Leiden.
Book Review
2020 "In the Time of Energy, it is Time to Make Place for Energy in Cultural Production." In Anthropology Book Forum, Vol. 6, no. 1. Book review of Imre Szeman (2019). On Petrocultures: Globalization, Culture, and Energy. West Virginia University Press.
2019 "The Academic Legacy of a Concerned Anthropologist. Review of Contrarian Anthropology. The Unwritten Rules of Academia by Laura Nader" Public Anthropologist, Vol. 2, Issue 2.
Book chapters
2018a. What Lies Below: the politics of resource conflict in Turkana, Kenya. In Szolucha, Anna ed. Energy, Resource Extraction and Society. Impacts and contested futures.Routledge.
2018b. Well-Being, Healthcare and Development in Turkana: Pre and Post Devolution. In Fyhn H., H. Aspen and A.K. Larsen Edges of Global Transformation Ethnographies of Uncertainty.Rowman and Littlefield.
PhD thesis
2020 "Generating Oil in the Cradle of Mankind: an ethnographic analysis of the Syncretic Oil Complex in Turkana, Kenya". Thesis for the degree of Philosophiae Doctor, University of Bergen.
Master thesis
2010 "The Children of Eve: change and socialization among sedentarized Turkana children and youth". Thesis for the degree of Master of Philosophy. Department of Social Anthropology, University of Bergen.