University of Oxford
School of Anthropology & Museum Ethnography
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Professor Harvey Whitehouse

Harvey Whitehouse
Professor Harvey Whitehouse

Director of the Centre for the Study of Social Cohesion (CSSC)

Fellow of Magdalen College

The evolution of social complexity, religion, ritual, and warfare; the causes of recurrence and variation in the religious repertoire cross-culturally and historically; explaining costly pro-group action and cooperation; the development of ritual and instrumental reasoning in childhood; the nature and origins of morality; research-based public policy applications and practical interventions.

Harvey Whitehouse is particularly well known for his theory of "modes of religiosity". The modes theory proposes that the frequency and emotionality of rituals influences the scale and structure of religious organizations: low-frequency, highly arousing rituals bind together small but very cohesive groups of participants; high-frequency, less emotionally intense rituals create large anonymous communities that are more diffusely integrated. In recent years, Harvey Whitehouse's work has expanded beyond religion to examine the role of rituals of all kinds in binding groups together and motivating inter-group competition, including warfare. This research has become increasingly global in reach with ongoing data collection now established at field sites in Singapore, Japan, Indonesia, New Zealand, Australia, Vanuatu, Brazil, USA, Spain, Cameroon, and Libya. Harvey Whitehouse is also a founding director, and the editor for ritual variables, of SESHAT: The Global History Databank.

Contact

Email: harvey.whitehouse@anthro.ox.ac.uk
Telephone: +44 (0)1865 274705
Website: Professor Harvey Whitehouse's personal website
Research Centre: Centre for Social Cohesion

Harvey Whitehouse's research and teaching covers a broad range of research topics and methods. His doctoral students and postdocs have successfully completed projects using methods as diverse as ethnographic fieldwork, carefully controlled experiments in both lab and field, field surveys, online surveys, database construction and analysis, semantic network analysis, brain imaging, and agent based modeling. Many now have permanent academic positions (e.g. at the University of Oxford, Royal Holloway University of London, Brunel University, Bath Spa University, Queen's University Belfast, Auckland University, Aarhus University, the Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris) while others have tenure-track positions at a broad range of universities across North America and postdoc positions around the world. Harvey Whitehouse is always keen to hear from prospective research students interested in working on topics relevant to his current projects.