Joy is rarely the focus of social scientific research, yet it has never been more important. We are living through what scholars call a ‘metacrisis’ — a time when multiple complex systems are in crisis simultaneously, interacting in unpredictable ways. Climate collapse, political polarization, mental health epidemics, and social fragmentation define our era. The experience of crisis today is ubiquitous, enduring, and emotionally exhausting.
Social scientists have primarily documented the negative qualities of contemporary life: ennui, melancholy, alienation, and despair. While this critique is valuable, it carries its own risks. In focusing exclusively on suffering, we may miss the resources people actually use to navigate crisis.
Yet around the world, people living through the metacrisis require joy to sustain them. From Black joy movements challenging oppression, to environmental activists finding exultation in reciprocal relationships with nature, to youth protesters using exuberant creativity to mock authoritarian regimes – joy powers resistance, sustains resilience, and enables repair.
Despite its profound social and personal significance, joy remains remarkably understudied. By focusing on joy, we can understand what matters to people and how it matters.
AnthropoloJOY addresses an urgent need: to study human responses to the metacrisis without reducing them to despair and disenfranchisement. We seek to make visible the solutions people are already creating, both for the communities we work with and for social science itself. Focusing on joy is neither naïve nor pollyannaish – joy is a mixed emotion that can coexist with sorrow and struggle. Rather, it offers a paradigm shift: a way to study the full spectrum of human emotional complexity and to recognize the possibility of transformative change even in troubled times.
AnthropoloJOY is built on three core commitments that distinguish our approach.
Collaboration, not extraction. We work alongside participants as partners, employing local research assistants who co-author outputs, using participatory methods that empower communities to represent themselves, and sharing our analysis for feedback before publication. Our Joy Network creates lasting relationships beyond the grant period.
Methodological innovation. We’re the first cross-cultural qualitative study of joy, combining long-term ethnographic immersion with cutting-edge micro-phenomenological interviews and creative photovoice methods. This rigorous yet flexible approach captures both the cultural specificity and lived phenomenology of joyous experience.
Positive research culture. If we study joy, we must practice it. We’ve designed working conditions that support wellbeing: flexible arrangements for researchers with caring responsibilities, bi-annual writing retreats for intellectual community, transparent communication, and genuine ownership over the research process. We model the kinds of working relationships and research practices we hope to inspire across the social sciences.
These commitments reflect our conviction that how we do research matters as much as what we discover. AnthropoloJOY demonstrates that rigorous scholarship and ethical, joyful collaboration are not just compatible – they’re mutually reinforcing.
Professor Joanna Cook
(Principal Investigator)
Joanna Cook is Professor of Anthropology at University College London and a world-leading expert in the anthropology of ethics, emotion, and embodied practice. With over twenty years of immersive fieldwork experience – including ordaining as a Buddhist nun in Thailand and training as a mindfulness therapist in the UK – she brings unparalleled insight into ethical complexity and self-cultivation practices. Her award-winning books Meditation in Modern Buddhism and Making a Mindful Nation have shaped scholarship across anthropology, religious studies, psychology, and policy studies. As PI, she provides scientific leadership, coordinates research activities, and will lead the UK fieldwork on ecstatic self-transcendence in conscious dance movements.
Dr. Daniel White
(Postdoctoral Research Associate)
Daniel White is a sociocultural anthropologist specializing in emotion, affect, and the effects of technological development on human-environmental health. He focuses regionally on Japan, with connections to Hawaiʻi and the Asia-Pacific. Through ethnographic fieldwork on non-Western models of emotional wellbeing, his work contributes to the diversification of emotion theory within the social sciences; the critique of allopathic approaches to health; and the decolonization of Western methods of environmental stewardship. His publications include articles on affect within major anthropology journals (Cultural Anthropology 2017, 2021; Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 2023), an award-winning ethnographic monograph with Stanford University Press (2022), and an edited volume with leading affect theorists with Toronto University Press (2026). He also has a record of leading transdisciplinary research groups on human-technology relations (modelemotion.org), incorporating anthropologists, psychologists, computer scientists, and engineers. His recent work leverages anthropological theories of emotion to applied community work in human-environmental wellbeing in Japan, Okinawa, and Hawaiʻi.
Dr. Matan Shapiro
(Postdoctoral Research Associate)
Matan Shapiro is an expert on Brazilian society, politics, and religion, with extensive research experience in northeast Brazil. His work spans popular festivity, Afro-Brazilian possession practices, Pentecostal revivalism, playfulness, sexuality, kinship, and Brazil’s changing political landscape. This breadth of expertise makes him ideally positioned to investigate euphoric joy in Maranhão’s Carnival retreats, Bumba meu Boi celebrations, and political rallies. Matan’s established networks and deep understanding of Alegría as embodied self-transcendence through encounters with enchanted entities will enable rich ethnographic engagement. His collaborative approach aligns perfectly with AnthropoloJOY’s commitment to participatory research and long-term community relationships.
Dr Benjamin Theobald
(Postdoctoral Research Associate)
Ben Theobald is an anthropologist of education, ethics, and youth. His previous research has involved ethnographic field work with novice monks studying at a monastic school in northern Thailand. On the AnthropoloJOY project Ben works with youth activist groups in Thailand, investigating the strategies activists employ in subverting establishment ideals, and looking at how their strategies might constitute attempts to seek novel forms of meaning and joy.
Wendy Chandler
(Finance and Project Manager)
Wendy Chandler oversees the project’s financial health, grant management, and research operations, ensuring that all activities run efficiently and in compliance with relevant regulations. With extensive experience in higher education administration, she brings a strong understanding of institutional processes, budgeting, and funding requirements. Wendy plays a central role in coordinating project workflows, supporting researchers, and maintaining effective communication across teams. Her attention to detail and proactive approach help anticipate challenges and keep the project on track. Through her expertise and dedication, she provides essential support that underpins the project’s success and long-term sustainability.
Dr. Annelie Drakman
(Interdisciplinary Advisory Board Member)
Dr. Annelie Drakman is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Culture and Aesthetics at Stockholm University, Sweden. As convenor of The History of Joy, she is a leading scholar tracing how joy has been conceptualized, valued, and practiced across different historical periods and cultural contexts. Dr. Drakman’s interdisciplinary approach, bridging cultural studies, aesthetics, and historical research brings essential historical perspective to AnthropoloJOY’s cross-cultural framework.
Professor Hirofumi Katsuno
(Interdisciplinary Advisory Board Member)
Professor Hirofumi Katsuno is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Doshisha University, Japan, and a leading expert on affect and emotion in Japanese society. Professor Katsuno’s research explores how emotions are shaped by and shape Japanese social life, technological change, and cultural practices. As a Japan-based scholar, he offers crucial insights into ethical fieldwork practices and interpretive frameworks that respect local epistemologies while contributing to comparative analysis.
Professor Tanya Luhrmann
(Interdisciplinary Advisory Board Member)
Professor Tanya Luhrmann is the Albert Ray Lang Professor of Anthropology at Stanford University, USA, and a world-leading expert in psychological anthropology, theory of mind, and self-transcendent experience. Her groundbreaking work explores how culture shapes inner experience, religious practice, and mental life. Professor Luhrmann is a leading scholar on the anthropology of mind who has transformed how anthropologists study inner worlds through her cross-cultural research on inner experience.
Professor Adam Potkay
(Interdisciplinary Advisory Board Member)
Professor Adam Potkay is William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Humanities and English at William and Mary, USA, and author of The Story of Joy: From the Bible to Late Romanticism (2007), the most widely cited existing volume on joy. His comprehensive historical and literary analysis of joy across Western traditions reveals the tensions between joy as spontaneous emotion and cultivated virtue. Professor Potkay is an expert on how joy has been imagined, narrated, and theorized through literature, philosophy, and religious texts.
Professor Bruno Reinhardt
(Interdisciplinary Advisory Board Member)
Professor Bruno Reinhardt is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Brazil, and a leading expert on religious subject formation, particularly in Brazilian contexts. Professor Reinhardt’s research explores how euphoric religious experience shapes subjectivity, community, and political life in northeast Brazil. As a Brazil-based scholar, he offers vital perspectives on conducting collaborative research that respects local epistemologies while contributing to global conversations about joy, transcendence, and the role of the divine in social life.
Professor Joel Robbins
(Interdisciplinary Advisory Board Member)
Professor Joel Robbins is Sigrid Rausing Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge, UK, and a leading figure in the anthropology of ethics. As originator of the influential ‘Anthropology of the Good,’ he has pioneered theoretical approaches that move beyond social science’s focus on suffering and critique. Professor Robbins’s expertise in value, moral aspiration, and cultural transformation directly informs our investigation of how joy relates to ethical life.
Dr. Anusorn Unno
(Interdisciplinary Advisory Board Member)
Dr. Anusorn Unno is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Thammasat University, Thailand, and an expert on Thai politics, social movements, and youth activism. His deep knowledge of Thailand’s contemporary political landscape and generational conflicts provides indispensable guidance for our Thailand fieldwork. Dr. Unno’s research examines how young Thais engage with democracy, challenge traditional authority, and create new forms of political participation. As a Thailand-based scholar with established relationships in activist communities, Dr Unno’s research provides insight into how joyous activism intersects with broader struggles for democratic change.
Dr. Chika Watanabe
(Interdisciplinary Advisory Board Member)
Dr. Chika Watanabe is Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of Manchester, UK, and a leading scholar on disaster, resilience, and play in Japanese contexts. She has conducted innovative research on how communities prepare for catastrophe and the role of playfulness in prefigurative politics. Her expertise bridges Japanese studies and broader anthropological questions about hope, care, and human capacity for connection and civic support.