Departmental homepageDr Watson studied as an undergraduate at Queen's University Belfast, and then completed her PhD at Girton College, Cambridge. She joined St John's College in 1990 as a Research Fellow and three years later was appointed as a University Lecturer in Social Anthropology. She became a College Lecturer in Anthropology from 1999.
Dr Watson teaches Part I Social Anthropology (Human Societies: the comparative perspective) and various Foundation and Advanced level Option Papers in Part II of the Tripos including nationalism, religious movements and political protest, belief and ethics, gender, anthropology and development.
Her fieldwork undertaken in Egypt, Sudan, France and Ireland has focused on migration and identity, religious nationalisms and sectarianism. Her interest in questions of belief, uncertainty and memory underpins various research projects on exile and homeland, legacies of conflict and spiritualism.
'An Introduction to Social Anthropology' (with S Coleman) 1989
'Women and the veil: personal responses, global processes', In Ahmed & Donnan (eds), Islam, Globalisation and Postmodernity. Routledge 1997
'Religion and legitimations of Violence'. In Hinde & Watson, (eds), War: a cruel necessity? Tauris 1998
'Women in the City of the Dead'. Hurst 1992
