Paul Basu has long-standing research interests in the history of anthropology and anthropological collecting. He is particularly interested in the spatial and temporal dynamics of material culture and memory, including the intersecting journeys of people and things, and the value of historical ethnographic collections in the present for different stakeholders. His recent books include The Inbetweenness of Things (Bloomsbury 2017) and Museums, Heritage and International Development (Routledge 2015, with Wayne Modest). He is currently leading a three-year AHRC-funded research project entitled Museum Affordances, of which the Pitt Rivers Museum is a partner, focusing on the ethnographic collections and archives assembled by N. W. Thomas in Nigeria and Sierra Leone in the early 20th century.
