Sacrifice, the Gift and (il)legal Exclusion

What sense can be made of the rituals that surround the exclusion of students from school? In this seminar, Luke will argue that the tripartite obligations of "The Gift" and the exuberant and combative expenditure of the "Potlatch" are alive and well in the everyday practices of one our most quotidian institutions. Based upon a two year fully immersive ethnographic research study of a comprehensive school in North London, Luke will draw upon anthropological theory and continental philosophy to articulate the psycho-social necessity of a sacrificial logic in the face of systemic and unremitting failure and the existential crisis of contemporary schooling. Luke is a DPhil Candidate at the Centre for Criminology, University of Oxford. He holds an MA in Social Anthropology from the University of Edinburgh and an MSc in Criminology from The University of Oxford. His research is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council.