Vulnerabilities and Worldmaking in Ethnographic Research • Dr Jenny Bentley

About Dr Jenny Bentley

Member, SEG Interface Engaged Anthropology Commission
Research lead, Echostream, Gangtok 
Co-executive director, Tapriza, Zürich

Jenny Bentley (PhD) is currently an associated researcher at the ISEK (Department for Cultural Anthropology and Cultural Studies, University of Zurich) and the research head at Echostream, a multi-disciplinary design agency based in Gangtok, Sikkim (India).

As a social anthropologist Jenny Bentley has always moved along the interface of academia, activism and creative engagement. Already as a student she volunteered at the Society for Threatened People (SFTP), an independent voice for the cause of minorities and Indigenous people, and at the Tapriza Verein, a NGO supporting a school project built around local language, religion, culture and Indigenous knowledge systems. Currently, she is the executive director of the latter.

She conducted extensive field research for her PHD thesis at the University of Zürich on rituals, vulnerabilities and Indigenous belonging that she submitted in 2020. From 2010 until present, she started collaborating with the Sikkimese multi-disciplinary design agency Echostream in applied anthropology projects. These projects focus on knowledge transfer through modern media and art amongst others animation movies, story-telling, interpretation centres, ethnographic workshops and research tools for local communities. Since, she has been engaged in supporting refugee and migrant communities in Switzerland by heading intercultural encounter projects at the K5 Basler Kurszentrum. From 2021 to 2024 she engaged in a research project on storytelling, Indigenous youth empowerment and sacred lands in collaboration with the Department for Religious Studies at the University of Toronto. The website to this project will be aired shortly. Her book, Guardians of Land and Water. Rituals, Vulnerability, and Indigenous Belonging Among the Himalayan Mútunci will be published this year.