The Department of Anthropology is pleased to announce the 2025 Anthropology Annual Lecture with distinguished lecturer and anthropologist, Sophia Stamatopoulou-Robbins. Join us on Thursday, March 20, as Stamatopoulou-Robbins traces Palestinians’ experiences of waste in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
This lecture will offer an analysis unusual in the study of Palestine, beginning with the environmental, infrastructural and aesthetic context in which Palestinians forge their lives. Stamatopoulou-Robbins describes how what she calls a "waste siege" was part of a moment of stabilization under occupation in the post-Oslo period, contributing to a sense of indeterminacy around responsibility for the burdensome objects and arrangements of daily life. She asks, “What can waste management, in the absence of a state, tell us about 21st century conditions of settler colonialism, and how can an investigation of infrastructure help us understand Gaza, and Palestine more broadly, in the present moment? The York community is invited to attend.
Date: Thursday, March 20
Time: 4 - 6 p.m. EST
Location: Nat Taylor Cinema N102, Ross Building
Sophia Stamatopoulou-Robbins is a New York-based anthropologist and filmmaker with interests in infrastructure, waste, the environment, platform capitalism, the home, and neurodivergence. Her first book, Waste Siege: The Life of Infrastructure in Palestine (Stanford University Press, 2019), won five major book awards. Her second book, which explores the impacts of Airbnb on property ownership in Athens, Greece, is under contract with Duke University Press. Learn more about her scholarship and filmmaking on her website.