About

Research at CRIA is organized into four Research Groups (RGs), providing a comprehensive framework: Circulation and Place-Making; Environment, Sustainability and Ethnography; Livelihoods, Politics and Inequalities; and Practices and Politics of Culture. These were complemented by bottom-up Thematic Lines (TLs) focusing on specific subjects from Health, Visual Anthropology and Arts, Studies in Arab and Islamic Contexts, Religion, South Asian Studies and Political Ecology.

Furthermore, CRIA's four Laboratories (Audiovisual, Environmental anthropology and behavioural Ecology, Biological Anthropology and Osteological Human Remains, and the Laboratory Jill Rosemary Dias) play a crucial role in advancing theoretical and methodological research, enhancing anthropological knowledge and research, enabling CRIA to facilitate collaboration between scientific subfields, methodological experimentation, and engagement with non-academic audiences.

CRIA also mobilizes the expertise of its researchers, in close relation with IN2PAST - Associate Laboratory for Research and Innovation in Heritage, Arts, Sustainability and Territory.

RESEARCH STRATEGY

CRIA is deeply committed to a scientific approach grounded in ethnography, combining analytical rigor with social relevance. Its scientific strategy prioritizes interdisciplinarity, multi-scale comparisons, and the articulation between the local and the global. This orientation is reflected in the geographical diversity of its projects, developed in Portugal and in international contexts such as Africa, South Asia, Latin America, and Europe.
CRIA’s activities have reinforced the value of anthropology in Portugal and internationally, gaining recognition in areas such as civil rights (gender equality, racism, religion, and Islamophobia), public policies (migration, justice, surveillance, health, and environment), material and immaterial culture, and audiovisual production. The center is a multidimensional and innovative space within the European landscape, with an institutional identity that is internationally recognized and valued.
CRIA fosters international collaborations in research and dissemination, aligning itself with relevant academic debates and public interventions. Valuing deep and prolonged ethnographic research, the center maintains an independent approach, committed to theoretical innovation and the production of knowledge that responds to social expectations. In addition, CRIA promotes public events that stimulate dialogue on urgent social issues, advocating fair policies for inclusive and sustainable societies.
Committed both to fundamental science and to the production of social and cultural knowledge, its strategic research areas include:
a) Collaborative and inclusive approach to heritage;
b) Migrations and inclusive societies;
c) Social policies and governance;
d) Family, gender and sexuality; 
e) Humans and Environment, Anthropology of ecological disasters;
f) Consequences of austerity: precariousness and grassroots economics;
g) Racism, xenophobia and islamophobia;
h) Health and multiculturalism;
i) Inclusive policies on health and education;
j) Religious practices.

Projects 2025-2029

In CRIA’s scientific strategy for 2025–2029, five structuring initiatives stand out: 1) the Digital Ethnographic Archive; 2) the scientific project for a Migrations Museum; 3) the Atlas of Socio-Environmental Interfaces; 4) the Ethnographic Observatory; 5) the Toolkit for Restitution. 
With these initiatives, CRIA reinforces its commitment to both fundamental and applied science, contributing to more inclusive, sustainable, and just societies. Its mission is to continue affirming Anthropology as a central discipline for understanding and addressing contemporary challenges, combining theoretical innovation, in-depth ethnography, and social responsibility.