I have carried out research in several guises: as a curator of anthropology at the Horniman Museum and Gardens, as an AHRC funded PhD student, in post doctoral roles at the University of Cambridge, and as a Principal Investigator on an AHRC funded project. As my career has progressed my research interests have developed from museum-specific concerns to engagement with the expansive academic discourse around heritage, politics and identity. My outputs have been diverse and include theoretical contributions, an edited volume, and an open access database, which has been drawn on extensively, including by policy-makers.
I enjoy translating my research into lectures, seminars and public talks. I have designed and taught an MA module in Museum and Gallery studies at Kingston University and been invited to give guest lectures and seminars at the University of Cambridge, University College London, SOAS, the University of Sheffield, the Royal College of Art, UEA, Queens University Belfast, and University College Cork. Outside of academia, perhaps the talk I’ve enjoyed giving the most was facilitated by the former Chief Druid Philip Carr Gomm and was delivered to an audience interested in magic and wellbeing.
My published work explores two strands of enquiry: the first concerns the political use of the past in the present. Heritage is becoming ever more contested and a nuanced conception of why this is happening is essential if the sector is to move in productive directions. The second strand relates to how my background has influenced the stories which I want to tell as an academic and as a curator.
I’ve pursued both strands in British contexts and through the case study of the Kalasha, a religious minority who live on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. My work with the Kalasha explores how they have been seen by outsiders and how they have negotiated these perceptions. The case of the Kalasha shines a light on some of the currents which shape the relationship between heritage, identity, and pluralism elsewhere.
(Many of my publications can be downloaded at my academia.edu page).
Crowley, Tom (2024). ‘Folklore, Spiritually Invested Communities, and the Ethnography Museum’. Museum Ethnographers Group (blog). June 11, 2024. https://museumethnographersgroup.org.uk/blog/folklore-spiritually-invested-communities-and-the-ethnography-museum/.
Crowley, Tom, Harknett, Sarah-Jane, Hewitt, Peter, Jeffries, Nigel, Oakley Harrington, Christina and Ryder, Kirsty (2024). ‘Amulets, Charms and Witch-Bottles Workshop’. In Folklore Society (FLS) News, 103, pp 5-7.
Crowley, Tom (2024). ‘Drawing on the Frontier: Sketchbook-cum-Journals and my Positionality as an Ethnographer of the Kalasha’. In Nafay Choudhury and Annika Schmeding (eds) Frontier Ethnographies: Deconstructing Research Experiences in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Oxford: Berghahn, pp 192-218.
Crowley, Tom (2023). 'The Politics of Peristan'. In Alberto M. Cacopardo and Augusto S. Cacopardo (eds) Roots of Peristan: The Pre-Islamic Cultures of the Hindukush/Karakorum. Rome: ISMEO (Associazione Internazionale di Studi sul Mediterraneo e l'Oriente), pp 53-74.
Crowley, Tom (2023). ‘Who are the Curators? Surveying Museum Staff in the UK who Create Narratives With Ethnographic Collections’. In Journal of Museum Ethnography, 36, pp 157-169.
Crowley, Tom (2022). ‘Mumuret: Drawing a Valley on the Afghan-Pakistan Frontier’. The Highlander Journal, 2, pp 1-9.
Crowley, Tom (2021). To Change Is to Be: The Kalasha of Pakistan’s Afghan Frontier and the Age of Heritage. Doctoral Thesis. University of Cambridge.
Crowley, Tom and Mills, Andrew (eds) 2018. Weapons, Culture and the Anthropology Museum. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars.
Crowley, Tom 2018. 'Horror in the Horniman: Living with the Cuenca Torture Chair'. In Tom Crowley and Andrew Mills (eds.) Weapons, Culture and the Anthropology Museum. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars, pp 176-190.
Crowley, Tom 2015. 'Rediscovering the Samson and Bailey Collections: Lost landscapes and London's Tibetans'. In Journal of Museum Ethnography, 28, pp 173-183.