Santiago Ripoll

My academic research focuses on social context, experience and ethics. I focus on the clashes (or alignments) that occur between framings by different social actors (including policymakers) and the realities of people’s everyday lives, highlighting them either through participatory or ethnographic research. I have specialised in ‘translating’ different forms of social science evidence (especially that which emerges from anthropological insights) to different audiences to make it more applicable and operational. This includes:

a. Making social science operational for public health emergencies: Facilitating knowledge exchange between anthropologists and social scientists, and public health and humanitarian practitioners for the Social Science in Humanitarian Action platform (SSHAP). www.socialscienceinaction.org.

b. Promoting interdisciplinary exchanges in the field of ethics (between cognitive and behavioural anthropology, moral philosophy, and anthropology) as co-Director of the ‘Social Science and Ethics Research Group’ (SSERG) https://www.sussex.ac.uk/research/centres/social-science-ethics/

c. Incorporating ethnographic and participatory approaches into food system analysis: Together with IDS colleagues such as Elise Wach, we focus on the importance of participatory action research, in-depth qualitative and applied historical research to bring the voices of people who are often sidelined into decision-making processes in food and agriculture.

For this purpose, I manage research and develop networks for research platforms that facilitate this dialogue between different types of knowledge. I have developed expertise in curating inter and transdisciplinary debates around policy issues in health, food security and nutrition in ways that people’s everyday experiences and perspectives are incorporated into policy processes.