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Project Collaborator

Fiona Greenland

Assistant Professor of Sociology University of Virginia

Biography

Photo by Erielle Bakkum

Fiona Greenland works at the intersection of cultural sociology, comparative and historical sociology, and archaeology. The core issue she investigates is the role of artifactual culture in modern social life. To do this, she uses mixed qualitative methods that attend to individual and group interpretive practices, the nexus of art, money, and meaning, and the historical contingencies of institutional authority over cultural materials. Greenland has conducted fieldwork in archaeological sites, museums, and antiquities shops in Italy, Spain, Britain, and the United States. Her research is supported by the National Science Foundation. She is the author of, most recently, Ruling Culture: Art Police, Tomb Robbers, and the Rise of Cultural Power in Italy (Chicago, 2021). Greenland is founder and director of the CURIA Lab (Cultural Resilience Informatics and Analysis). She served as an elected council member of the American Sociological Association’s Section on Culture, the Comparative-Historical Section, and the Theory Section. She is a Faculty Fellow at the Yale Center for Cultural Sociology (CCS), and a member of the editorial boards of the American Journal of Cultural Sociology and Sociological Theory.

Featured Project

The Past for Sale: Morag Kersel – Visiting Fellow

2015 – 2017

Projects

The Past for Sale: New Approaches to the Study of Archaeological Looting

The Past for Sale: New Approaches to the Study of Archaeological Looting

Researchers applied empirical research and new methodologies to identify promising policy solutions to the complex international problem of archaeological looting and trafficking.

The problem of archaeological looting has long vexed policymakers. But the opacity of the market for illicit antiquities makes it difficult for them to bring looting under control. Even as global demand rises and archaeological sites in war-torn regions are pillaged by terrorist groups, the...