Megan Laws is an anthropologist interested in the way experiences of environmental, political, and economic uncertainty shape ethics of sharing and cooperation. She is a specialist in the anthropology of southern Africa and has conducted ethnographic research with Indigenous (predominantly Ju|’hoan) peoples in the Kalahari Desert region of Namibia and Botswana. She holds a BS in anthropology (with honors) from University College London (UCL) and completed her PhD in anthropology at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in 2019. Her doctoral thesis, “All Things Being Equal: Uncertainty, Ambivalence, and Trust in a Namibian Conservancy,” was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), and examines the role that egalitarian values play in efforts to navigate different experiences of uncertainty and traces the way Ju|’hoansi negotiate the ambivalence that often follows. Since completing her PhD, she has held postdoctoral research and teaching positions at LSE and UCL and worked in public policy—most recently as a social researcher supporting teams responsible for delivering the UK’s commitments under the Paris Climate Agreement.
She is dedicated to the documentation and preservation of endangered languages and works closely with the Kalahari Peoples Fund and a team of specialists to produce and archive Ju|’hoan language materials and support mother-tongue education. At the RCC she is the co-investigator of the “Changing Environments, Changing Childhoods” research project.
Selected Publications:
- “Demanding from Others: How Ancestors and Shamans Govern Opacity in the Kalahari.” In “Governing Opacity: The Politics of Intentions and Legibility.” Ed. Natalia Buitron and Hans Steinmüller. Special issue, Ethnos 88, no. 4 (2023): 702–23. https://doi.org/10.1080/00141844.2021.2007156.
- “Egalitarianism.” The Open Encyclopedia of Anthropology (2023). http://doi.org/10.29164/22egalitarianism.
- with Giulio Ongaro. “Towards a Progressive Theory of Myth: Turner and Graeber on Social Creativity.” FocaalBlog, 24 January 2022. https://www.focaalblog.com/2022/01/24/giulio-ongaro-and-megan-laws-towards-a-progressive-theory-of-myth-turner-and-graeber-on-social-creativity/.
- with Nikita Simpson, Michael Angland, Jaskiran K. Bhogal, Rebecca E. Bowers, Fenella Cannell, Katy Gardner, Anishka Gheewala Lohiya et al. “‘Good’ and ‘Bad’ Deaths During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Insights from a Rapid Qualitative Study.” BMJ Global Health 6, no. 6. (2021), http://doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2021-005509.
- “You're a Trickster: Mockery, Egalitarianism, and Uncertainty in Northeastern Namibia.” Social Analysis 63, no. 1 (2019): 1–21. https://doi.org/10.3167/sa.2019.630102.