Dr Adam Sargent is the most recent researcher to join the ANU School of Archaeology and Anthropology, where he brings his unique approach to understanding social inequality and oppression through the lens of linguistic and semiotic anthropology.

The Anthropology lecturer earned his Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology from Reed College in Portland, USA, in 2005. After a brief stint in Portland’s construction industry, he pursued a PhD in sociocultural anthropology at The University of Chicago, which he completed in 2018. Before joining ANU, he was a postdoctoral researcher at Northwestern University, and most recently, at Western Sydney University as part of the ARC Centre of Excellence in Automated Decision-Making and Society.

Working in the construction industry for a brief period, Dr Sargent was, "shocked and fascinated by the politics around language and labour on the site—from the treatment of Spanish-speaking migrant workers by English-speaking engineers to the organisation of work through drawings, lists, and reports." 

These experiences inspired his PhD studies, where he explored political economic relationships, like labour, from a semiotic perspective. Six years since completing his PhD, he continues to pursue this approach, stating, “I have kept with it because approaching labour in this way puts questions of how our encounters at work, where most of us spend most of our time, shape us in ways that are both intimate (our habits, the way we move, etc.) and far reaching in terms of reproducing relations of exploitation and hierarchy.” 

Now based in the Banks Building at ANU, Dr Sargent is working on a book manuscript, tentatively titled, ‘Subjects of Construction’, which examines the politics of labour and livelihood in India’s modernising construction industry. He explains, “I focus on a self-proclaimed ‘modern’ construction site in New Delhi where the use of green materials and carbon offsets sat uneasily with a plethora of chemical exposures that workers learned to endure in their everyday work.”

Away from university life, Dr Sargent and his family are settling into the nation’s capital saying, “I’ve always really liked Canberra. My favourite thing at the moment is being able to live a five-minute walk from both a good coffee shop and a hiking trail where you can regularly see birds and kangaroos. The variety and intensity of bird life here is incredible.”

Read more about Dr Adam Sargent’s work here.

Linguistic and Semiotic Anthropology is a subfield of anthropology that examines how language, signs, and communication both reflect and constitute social life, cultural practices, and human behaviour. Linguistic anthropology focuses on the role of language in social interactions, cultural transmission, and identity formation, exploring how language influences and is influenced by social structures and power dynamics. Semiotic anthropology, on the other hand, extends this analysis to all forms of signs and symbols, studying how meaning is constructed, conveyed, and interpreted in various cultural contexts. Together, these approaches provide powerful tools for analysing how language and signs play a crucial role in maintaining and challenging social inequalities and cultural norms.