Perig Pitrou is an anthropologist, senior researcher in the CNRS. He leads the team “Anthropology of Life” in the Laboratoire d’Anthropologie Sociale, Collège de France/ Paris Sciences et Lettres University. After a M.A in philosophy at University Sorbonne Paris I, he obtained a PhD in Anthropology at the EHESS, Paris. He has carried a long-term ethnographical investigation in Mexico to study the conceptions of life and wellbeing and the relations with the natural environment in Amerindian communities. He investigates the relations between biotechnology and society within an anthropological comparative framework, in research programs funded by the Fyssen Foundation, the CNRS and PSL University. He founded the collective “Life in the making” to explores how interdisciplinary collaborations can bring new insights for improving the quality of life of human societies.

Visiting scholar at University of Brasilia, the University College London and the Casa de Velázquez of Madrid, he has written and co-edited 14 books and special issues, published in France, the United States, Brazil, Australia or Japan. His works on life course rituals, animism, biotechnologies, biomimicry, biobanking or astrobiology have been presented in international journals (Current Anthropology, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, L’Homme, Techniques & Culture) and in more than 200 presentations he gave in research seminar and international conferences.

Publications:

• Life as a process of making in the Mixe Highlands (Oaxaca, Mexico): towards a ‘general pragmatics’ of life