Dr William Tantam

My current research explores the experiences of victims and survivors of non-recent child sexual abuse. This includes experiences of disclosure, support, coping and wellbeing. It also includes creative practices and responses to traumatic experiences.

I am part of a network of therapists, counsellors, and academics, including professionals with lived experiences of child sexual abuse, sharing knowledge surrounding non-recent child sexual abuse and provides training to clinical and related staff in how to facilitate disclosures and support victims and survivors.

My prior anthropological work examined the embodiment and enactment of social hierarchies in Jamaica through a close study of 'pick up ball' (informal football matches) in a rural, coastal community. This work involved an examination of race and racisms, gender, class, age hierarchies, and contemporary mobilities. My ethnographic monograph An Ethnography of Football and Masculinities in Jamaica: Letting the football talk' was published by Bloomsbury in 2020. 

I received my PhD in Anthropology from Goldsmiths in 2016. Since then I have held a postdoctoral position in Caribbean Studies at the Institute of Latin American Studies (ILAS), and have lectured at the University of Liverpool and Goldsmiths. From 2019-2021 I worked as a Researcher with the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA). I joined the Department of Anthropology and Archaeology at Bristol in 2022.