An Ethnography of a Shield: Reading Strength and Vulnerability from Within
Josie Hu
MA Creative and Collaborative Enterprise
This piece reflects on changing understandings of inner strength. It traces the making of a ‘shield’ as a self‑defence mechanism, when strength meant control and emotional guardedness. It then shows how studying anthropology reframed the author’s view of this shield, redefining strength as the capacity to stay with vulnerability, fear, and uncertainty.
Fieldnotes on Waterloo Station
Alessandro Patel
BSc Anthropology
Through his fieldnotes on Waterloo Station, Alessandro reflects on how geese and people might not be so different after all.
The Linguistics of Otherness: Singlish in London
Hayley Soh
BSc Anthropology
What does it mean to be ‘othered’ through your accent? A Singaporean student’s reflection on Singlish in a transnational context.
An Ode to the Oppressed, From a Daughter of the Dispersed
Neusha Karshenas
Medical anthropology iBSc
This piece explores resilience—from a means of survival to a form of resistance against oppression—through a meditation on the 2011 Syrian revolution and a family’s experience of the 1979 Iranian revolution.
Culture
Talia J Lyn-Cook
BSc Anthropology
A thoughtful poem reflecting on culture’s contradictions—its power to divide and unite.
Her Name Grew in the Mountains
Xinyi Chen
MA Creative and Collaborative Enterprise
Second Place Winner, Writing Competition on the Theme of Transformation
Vulturing
Sylvie Planel
PhD Anthropology
First Place Winner, Writing Competition on the Theme of Transformation
Anthropolitan 
