Alumni Profiles
Alumni Profiles Dr Caroline Harper (Archaeology and Anthropology, 1978) By Wendy Holden (English, 1983) ‘I’m basically curious!’ says Dr Caroline Harper. ‘I’m especially interested in material cultures and identity, but also simply how people express and understand “belonging”’. This urge to understand has shaped her career. After many years working all over the world for institutions like the UN and Save The Children, she is now the Overseas Development Institute’s Director of Gender Equality and Social Inclusion, a post held for over a decade. Caroline read Archaeology and Anthropology at Girton, coming up in 1978 in the last all-female year. ‘Cambridge definitely made me a feminist. The ratio of men to women was said to be 8:1. And the boys seemed so comfortable—many having come from public schools whereas I’d barely learnt how to use a library.’ The boys seemed especially comfortable on the river, Caroline noticed. It was somewhere she herself had grown to love. ‘Being tall and having a very long “reach” I was scooped up into the Girton first boat in my first term and never looked back. I loved it, even the 6 a.m. bike rides to break the river ice in February and the occasional in-boat fainting from pure exhaustion! ‘But I was very aware of the sexism on the river. We had to borrow boats from St John’s College when they were not using them. Women were not allowed to row at Henley, and in the Blues battle with Oxford, where it seemed
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Spring 2021
men simply had to step into their boat and lock in their oars, (not even win), to get a ‘full’ Blue, women had much higher and more difficult targets set for their designated ‘half’ Blue—they had to win over Oxford and win several other events. I recall if they lost one event, they got nothing.’ Girton offered Caroline unparalleled educational opportunities. ‘I was so privileged to be taught by Professor Marilyn Strathern and Dr Joan Oates. Having regular one-on-ones with an academic as celebrated as Marilyn is unforgettable and when I mention this to Anthropology colleagues now, they are in awe.’ After graduation, Caroline joined the museum world—initially with a nautical theme, as befits a rower. ‘I was volunteering at the Mary Rose museum as this ancient boat was raised from
the English Channel. I then moved to an internship at the wonderful Museum of Mankind in London. Rooting around in the expansive cellars I developed my PhD idea among the museum fabrics and material culture.’ A long period abroad then began. ‘I didn’t come back for 20 years!’ And what years they were. ‘I spent some time in Communist Eastern Europe, living in Poland when I did my MA and visiting Romania under Ceausescu. I did my Anthropology PhD on the Thai–Laos border, living in a remote village and working with the Hmong minority group.’ The group enabled Caroline to revisit a previous skill; she must be the only Girtonian to have Liberty sell her batiks. ‘My PhD was on semiotics, image and ideology and, as I’d previously made and sold my own batik, I asked the
