In 1995,Zeitlyn moved to the University of Kent at Canterbury as a lecturer in Social Anthropology,in the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology.[8] By 2007 he was Professor of Anthropology there.[1] In 2010,he moved to the University of Oxford as a part-time Professor of Social Anthropology.[9]
In 1995,he was appointed as Hon. Editor of the RAI's bibliographic database,the "Anthropological Index Online" [10] and was concerned behind the scenes with some of the quiet,unseen and unacknowledged work to index and make work discoverable. Some of this was later discussed by Carocci and Earl-Fraser.[2]
He also served for many years on the ESRC Resources Board[11] which was funding the Social Science Data archive (now renamed as the UK Data Archive at the University of Essex which included the Qualidata archive,and some of the development of eSocial Science.
Research
As well as his ongoing research in Cameroon (mainly with Mambila People),Zeitlyn has been involved in ways of using the Internet to make anthropological material available since before the web was invented.[citation needed] His first internet publication used Gopher to make one of the first sound recordings of a non-Indo-European language available online.[12][citation needed]
At the University of Kent Zeitlyn worked with Mike Fischer to develop the Centre of Social Anthropology and Computing (CSAC) on a variety of projects.[13]
The CSAC vision as developed over the years was to make a wide range of research materials available for others to be able to use in various ways. This started with teaching:they wanted students to be able to see more of what the teaching staff-as- researchers had dealt with and synthesised into the articles and books which were the staple stuff of reading lists. This turned into a large project Experience Rich Anthropology the results of which are still online.[14] This was discussed independently by Sarah Pink[15] and others[16] as well as by Zeitlyn himself.[17]
He wrote a highly cited paper:"Gift economies in the development of open source software" that was in an early,formally-open,special issue of the journal 'Research Policy' [18] His work on archives and ethics has led to some open access articles:"Archiving ethnography?"[19] and "For Augustinian archival openness and laggardly sharing" [20]
Following a workshop in Yaoundé,Cameroon in 2013 he helped found an online journal with two Cameroonian colleagues "Vestiges:Traces of Record".[21]
2025 (December–April) Zeitlyn was co-curator with Dr Michelle Aroney of the exhibition "Oracles,Omens and Answers" at the Weston Library,the University of Oxford
Organiser/curator of 'Cameroon- faces and places:a photographic exhibition by two Cameroonian photographers',first at the British Council,Yaoundé,in January 2004,[citation needed] and second at the National Portrait Gallery,London in Summer 2005 as part of Africa’05.[26]
Collaboration with the artist Tomás Saraceno was reflected in the summer 2023 exhibition in the Serpentine Gallery London.[27]
Zeitlyn, David (2005). Words and Processes In Mambila Kinship: the Theoretical Importance of the Complexity of Everyday Life. Lexington Books (Rowman & Littlefield), Lanham, Maryland. ISBN9780739108017.
1 2 Carocci, Max; Earl-Fraser, Helen (2018). "Terms in place and time: A case study from the Anthropological Index Online". History and Anthropology. 29 (4): 517–540. doi:10.1080/02757206.2017.1401535.
↑ Blench, Roger; Zeitlyn, David (1989). "A Web of Words". SUGIA (Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika). 10/11: 171–186.
↑ Pink, Sarah (2011). "Digital visual anthropology: Potentials and challenges". In Ruby, Jay (ed.). Made to be seen: Perspectives on the history of visual anthropology. Chicago. pp.209–233. ISBN9780226036632.
↑ Dudley, Sandra; Petch, Alison (2002). "Using multi-media tools to teach anthropology: 'Pitt Rivers, Anthropology and Ethnography in the Nineteenth Century'". Journal of Museum Ethnography. 14: 14–23.
↑ Zeitlyn, David (2004). "Lessons learnt from the Experience Rich Anthropology Project". In Dracklé, Dorle (ed.). Current Policies and Practices in European Social Anthropology Education. Volume 2, Learning Fields. Berghahn Books. pp.85–96. ISBN1-57181-564-3.Zeitlyn, David (2004). "The Experience Rich Anthropology project and the Computer Simulation of Mambila Divination". In Pourchez, Laurent (ed.). Cultural diversity and indigenous peoples: Oral, written expressions and new technologies (CD). UNESCO Publishing. ISBN92-3-103939-3.
↑ Zeitlyn, David (2003). "Gift economies in the development of open source software: anthropological reflections". Research Policy. 32 (7): 1287–1291. doi:10.1016/S0048-7333(03)00053-2.
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