{{Short description|British anthropologist}} '''Laura Charlotte Bear''' {{Post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100%|MBE|FBA}} (born 1965) is a British anthropologist and academic, specializing in economic anthropology of South Asia and the United Kingdom. She is Professor of Anthropology at the London School of Economics and head of its Department of Anthropology.<ref name="LSE bio">{{cite web |title=Professor Laura Bear |url=https://www.lse.ac.uk/anthropology/people/laura-bear |website=London School of Economics and Political Science |access-date=24 July 2021}}</ref><ref name="lecture">{{cite web |title=The Public Good: Austerity, Infrastructure and a Social Calculus |url=https://www.ed.ac.uk/arts-humanities-soc-sci/news-events/lectures/munro-lectures/munro-lectures-2016-2017/laura-bear |website=The University of Edinburgh |access-date=24 July 2021 |language=en}}</ref><ref name="FBA">{{cite web |title=Professor Laura Bear FBA |url=https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/fellows/professor-laura-bear-fba/ |website=The British Academy |access-date=24 July 2021 |language=en}}</ref> ==Life== Bear's research has focused on India and the United Kingdom. While her early research concerned the effect of austerity on communities in India, she has most recently been studying the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on vulnerable households in the United Kingdom.<ref name="LSE bio" /> She is a member of three sub-groups of the British government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE).<ref>{{cite web |title=List of participants of SAGE and related sub-groups |url=https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/scientific-advisory-group-for-emergencies-sage-coronavirus-covid-19-response-membership/list-of-participants-of-sage-and-related-sub-groups |website=GOV.UK |publisher=Government Office for Science |access-date=24 July 2021 |language=en}}</ref>
Bear has written several articles and journal entries. One of them being in 2016, Bear authored a journal entry on anthropology, capitalism, and ethics, titled, ''[https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-anthro-102313-030159 Time as a Technique]''.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Bear |first=Laura |date=2016-10-21 |title=Time as Technique |url=https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-anthro-102313-030159 |journal=Annual Review of Anthropology |language=en |volume=45 |issue= |pages=487–502 |doi=10.1146/annurev-anthro-102313-030159 |issn=0084-6570}}</ref> She also authored the journal entry, ''[https://rai.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1467-9655.12091 Doubt, conflict, meditation: the anthropology of modern times]''.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Bear |first=Laura |date=2014 |title=Doubt, conflict, mediation: the anthropology of modern time |url=https://rai.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-9655.12091 |journal=Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute |language=en |volume=20 |issue=S1 |pages=3–30 |doi=10.1111/1467-9655.12091 |issn=1467-9655|doi-access=free }}</ref>
In 2021, Bear was elected a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA), the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and social sciences.<ref>{{cite web |title=The British Academy elects 84 new Fellows recognising outstanding achievement in the humanities and social sciences |url=https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/news/the-british-academy-elects-84-new-fellows-recognising-outstanding-achievement-in-the-humanities-and-social-sciences/ |website=The British Academy |access-date=24 July 2021 |language=en |date=23 July 2021}}</ref>
Bear was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2022 New Year Honours for services to anthropology during COVID-19.<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=63571|supp=y|page=N17|date=1 January 2022}}</ref>
==Selected works==
* {{cite book |last1=Bear |first1=Laura |title=Lines of the Nation: Indian Railway Workers, Bureaucracy, and the Intimate Historical Self |date=2007 |publisher=Columbia University Press |location=New York |isbn=978-0231140027}} * {{cite book |last1=Bear |first1=Laura |title=Navigating austerity: currents of debt along a South Asian river |date=2015 |publisher=Stanford University Press |location=Stanford, CA |isbn=978-0804789479}}
==References== {{reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Bear, Laura}} Category:Living people Category:British anthropologists Category:Economic anthropologists Category:British women anthropologists Category:Academics of the London School of Economics Category:Fellows of the British Academy Category:1965 births Category:Members of the Order of the British Empire