Panas Karampampas

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Panas Karampampas is a Greek social anthropologist who works at Durham University in the United Kingdom. He studies dance anthropology, intangible cultural heritage, and how global policies shape local cultures.

He grew up in the Athens suburbs of Agios Dimitrios and Alimos, where his family has lived since 1905. He studied Physical Education and Sport Science at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, earning a high grade, before completing an MA in Dance Anthropology at Roehampton University in London. He then completed his PhD at the University of St Andrews (2012–2016), focusing on the Greek goth scene, digital culture, cosmopolitanism, and globalization.

Career highlights include teaching and research roles at several institutions, such as EHESS in Paris, Panteion University in Athens, Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, the University of Peloponnese, and the University of Thessaly. He has served as a guest lecturer at St Andrews and as a visiting scholar at HSE University in Moscow. Since 2023 he has been based at Durham University, splitting time among the UK, Greece, and France. He also completed UNESCO's Training of Trainers for Intangible Cultural Heritage and has worked with UNESCO and the Council of Europe on heritage projects.

His research centers on intangible cultural heritage policy and global governance, with a focus on the anthropology of dance. He has published in journals such as Social Anthropology, International Journal of Heritage Studies, and Journal of Youth Studies. He co-edited Collaborative Intimacies: Anthropologies of Sound and Movement (Berghahn, 2017) and edited Intangible Cultural Heritage in times of economic crisis (2023). He serves on editorial boards including Social Anthropology/Anthropologie Sociale and is editor of Anthropological Journal of European Cultures.

In professional service, he has helped lead EASA networks—the MedNet Mediterraneanist Network (2018–2024) and the Europeanist Network—and was elected to the EASA Executive Board for 2025–2026. He is a Founding Board Member of the Association of Social Anthropologists of Greece.

Outside academia, Karampampas is an Advanced European Scientific Diver and a licensed scuba diving instructor, with a depth record of 103 meters. He is also a licensed coach in Kung Fu, Judo, and Ju Jitsu.