Karis Jade Petty received her PhD (Oct. 2017) in Anthropology at the University of Sussex and now lectures in Anthropology in the Global Studies School.

Her current research interests include: phenomenology, perception, disability (particularly visual impairment), sensorial experience, landscape, human-interspecies connection, walking, memory, time, intercorporeality, place, and wellbeing. Karis has a keen interest in developing sensorial research methodologies and teaches three ethnographic methods modules (undergraduate and postgraduate).

Karis has conducted extensive research into the perception of the South Downs landscape for walkers who have impaired vision. She endeavours to make this work widely available to various audiences through platforms including the Woodland Trust, South Downs National Park Authority, Walking for Health, and British Blind Sport. 

Her recent monograph titled 'Sensing the Landscape: An Ethnography of Blindness' was published in Routledge Sensory Studies Series 2025. 

Karis is UG Admissions Tutor for Anthropology. She is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy has received the Inclusive Sussex Education Award 2024. She received Student-Led Teaching Awards for Outstanding or Innovative Undergraduate Teaching in both 2016-17 and 2017-2018. In 2018-2019 and 2019-2020, Karis was nominated for the Sussex Spirit award, for teaching that encompasses the five core values of kindness, integrity, inclusion, collaboration and courage. She is passionate about developing inclusive and experiential student-led pedagogies. Karis is a member of the University of Sussex ‘Inclusive Teaching and Mental Health’ cross-disciplinary working group. She runs the Global Studies Neurodivergent Working Group for students and staff in her role as Neurodivergence Lead for the School of Global Studies as part of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Team.

- Presentations -

'Landscapes made visible: Seeing in the mind’s eye for the non-congenitally sight impaired'. Pitt-Rivers Museum Research Seminar in Visual, Material, and Museum Anthropology in Oxford, 6th December 2024.

'Beyond Sight: Inclusion through participatory arts methods for vision impaired people at Wakehurst', Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, 25th November 2024. 

'The role of inclusive arts in diversifying heritage', University of Sussex, 11th October 2024.

'Gender Equity Diversity and Inclusion in Higher Education: Expectations and Challenges', for senior university leaders from Southeast Asia and Greater Mekong, Institute of Development Studies and the University of Sussex, 30th June 2023.

‘Neurodivergence at intersections’, Decolonising Geography, University of Sussex, 8th June 2023.

'Exploring boundaries: self, other and landscape for walkers who have impaired vision', Encountering Environments symposium, University of Chichester, 8th October 2022.

'From Thesis to Book', Doctoral Researchers Network, University of Sussex, 8th June 2022.

'Seeing without eyes: multisensoriality, blindness and the landscape', Anthropology Research Seminar Series, University of Aberdeen, Scotland, 20th February 2020.

'In touch and feeling through: the emergence of the landscape among walkers with impaired vision', for the American Anthropological Association (Panel: Sport, Movement and the Senses), Vancouver Convention Center, Canada, 20-24 November 2019.

'Nature, presence and belonging', wellbeing practice-based workshop for postgraduates of the University of Sussex's School of Global Studies and the Institute of Development Studies, 16th July 2019, at the University of Sussex.

'Re-approaching sensory anthropology: perception, the environment and vision impairment', for the University of Sussex Anthropology Research Seminar Series, 26 November 2018.

‘Sensing the landscape: Recreational walking in the South Downs National Park for people who have impaired vision’ at the South Downs Research Conference, Sussex, England, 6th July 2017.

‘Cultivating the ecological self through sensory engagement with nature’, at the ‘Emerging Paradigms in Wellbeing Research: Nature, Mindfulness and Spirituality’ symposium, 27 June 2017, University of Sussex, England.

‘Reappraising the visual with respect to an ethnography of people who have impaired vision’, invited presentation on the ‘Visual world of difference’ panel at the Royal Anthropological Institute Film Festival, 29 March – 1 April 2017, Bristol, England.

'Perception, the environment and the uncanny: Sensing the woodlands with a psychic medium who has impaired vision', paper presentation at 'Wonder and the Natural World' conference, June 20 – 23 2016, at Indiana University Bloomington, USA.

‘A world within reach: a sensorial anthropology of unseen landscapes and the experience of impaired vision’, presentation and workshop, at ‘Language, Landscape and the Sublime’ symposium and creative gathering, June 29-30 2016, at Dartington Hall & Sharpham House, Devon, England.

"Blind people need to teach sighted people how to listen": ethnography through the body in an anthropology of sensory perception. Paper presentation at European Association of Social Anthropologists 14th EASA Biennial Conference, 'Anthropological legacies and human futures', 20-23 July 2016, Milan, Italy. Part of the panel 'Doing ethnography through the body', convened by Lorenzo Ferrarini (University of Manchester) and Nicola Scaldaferri (University of Milano).

Co-organised ‘Uncanny Landscapes’ panel at ‘Wild or Domesticated‘ interdisciplinary conference, 20-22 September 2016, at The House of Science and Letters, Helsinki, Finland. Presented paper titled: 'Perception, the environment and the uncanny: Sensing the woodlands with a psychic medium who has impaired vision'.

Exhibitions 

'Nature Unseen'. 8 May 2025. Brighton Festival. Sound composition and tactile forest.

'Seeing Wakehurst differently'. 2 September 2024. Wakehurst Kew Gardens. Sound composition and film.