Dr Lidia Sciama (1932-2024)

It is with deep sadness that we announce the death of Lidia Sciama on Friday 31 May 2024.

Lidia was an associate of St Antony’s College and Wolfson College and an active member of the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology. She was a founder member of the Centre for Cross-Cultural Research on Women (CCRW) at Queen Elizabeth House which became the International Gender Studies Institute at Lady Margaret Hall. She ran the CCRW for a time and organised many seminars over the years there with colleagues. 

She previously studied English literature in Venice, Jerusalem and the USA, and Anthropology in Cambridge and Oxford, where she completed her DPhil in Mediterranean studies.

Her thesis on lacemakers in Burano became the book A Venetian Island: Environment, History and Change in Burano (latest edition 2005) and she contributed towards, and edited many other books and journals, including Beads and Beadmakers with Joanne Eicher (1998) and Humour, Comedy and Laughter (2018). She also enjoyed supervising students.

Lydia’s funeral will take place on Wednesday 5 June at 2.15pm at the Jewish section of Wolvercote Cemetery, 447 Banbury Road, Oxford.