Browse Entries

Politics, Theory Literacy Literacy is a linguistic innovation characterised by the encoding and decoding of language into a system of visual signs whose relevance to daily life in most societies cannot be... December 2021 by Mark Turin, Robert Hanks	Region, Religion Vodou Haïtien Le vodou haïtien a été formé dans le contexte de l’esclavage. Culte de la famille royale au Dahomey, en Afrique Occidentale, il a été transformé par les esclaves de l’île d’Haïti en... November 2021 by Laënnec Hurbon	Politics, Theory History Anthropology and history are inseparable, sharing concerns with societies other than the one we currently inhabit—whether in time or in space. This entry considers how the relation... November 2021 by Eric Hirsch
Health, Politics Masculinity To know what men are, anthropologists look beyond dictionary definitions, personal experience, and opinions and study societies across the globe and throughout history. They study... November 2021 by Matthew Gutmann	Religion, Theory Monsters Monsters are not only key protagonists in myths, legends, fairy tales, fiction, and films; they also haunt cellars, cyberspace, and crossroads. Based on encounters with monsters in... October 2021 by Yasmine Musharbash	Health, Religion Mind There is something phenomenologically basic about the human experience of awareness, or consciousness. All ethnographies describe people who think, feel, imagine, hope, and are aware... October 2021 by Tanya Marie Luhrmann
Economics, Theory Social reproduction Social reproduction is a lens through which to analyse the persistence of society over time, even as its human and material components keep changing. Its main value is in identifying... September 2021 by Hadas Weiss	Economics, Politics Postsocialism The collapse of the socialist societies in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union drastically changed the lives of millions of people and offered a new and exciting field of research... September 2021 by Dominic Martin	Health, Kinship Care There are many universal assumptions about what care is and how it ought to be provided. Such assumptions are widely embedded in public debates, government policies, and... September 2021 by Patrick McKearney, Megha Amrith
Health, Theory Phenomenology Phenomenology is one of the most influential philosophical traditions of the twentieth century and has significantly shaped contemporary anthropological and social theory. This entry... August 2021 by Jarrett Zigon, Jason Throop	Politics, Theory Freedom of speech Free speech is a familiar concept. It is an established ideal of liberalism and democratic politics, and the subject of political debate and conflict across diverse historical and... July 2021 by Matei Candea, Fiona Wright, Paolo Heywood, Taras Fedirko	Politics, Religion Buddhism Buddhism has existed for around two and half millennia, and is practiced by over 500 million people in the world today. The anthropology of Buddhism spans the breadth of the Buddhist... July 2021 by Joanna Cook, Hildegard Diemberger
Politics, Theory Visual anthropology Visual anthropology encompasses two parallel aims: the production of anthropological media (including ethnographic film, video, photography, drawing, interactive media, etc.) as well... July 2021 by Jenny Chio	Health, Theory Medical pluralism Medical pluralism describes the availability of different medical approaches, treatments, and institutions that people can use while pursuing health: for example, combining... June 2021 by Venera Khalikova	Health, Theory Cannibalism Cannibalism, the eating of one’s own kind, is a practice that occurs in both humans and non-humans. Some people consumed their own kin to ensure that their spirits joined those of... June 2021 by Shirley Lindenbaum
Economics, Politics Sharing Sharing is a particularly versatile and widespread human practice that features in all domains of life, including religion and politics, family life, and economics. It has a long... April 2021 by Thomas Widlok	Economics, Politics Climate change Climate change, largely a product of human activities, is arguably the most comprehensive and dramatic challenge facing humanity. In the first decades of this century, its... April 2021 by Thomas Hylland Eriksen	Economics, Health Depression Depression, which psychiatrists regard as a most common mental illness, has been examined by anthropologists especially closely since the 1980s. While most medical experts consider... March 2021 by Junko Kitanaka, Stefan Ecks
Economics, Politics Dependence Dependence is often considered as a primarily negative state of being. It has gone from being described as a threat to individual self-reliance in early modern political theory in... February 2021 by Keir Martin	Politics, Theory Writing anthropology Writing is key in anthropology, as one of its main modes of communication. Teaching, research, publications, and outreach all build on, or consist of, writing. This entry traces how... February 2021 by Helena Wulff	Politics, Region Latin America ‘Latin’ America is a region constructed in a context of imperial rivalries and disputes about how to build ‘modern’ nations that made it an ‘other America’ distinct from ‘Anglo’... January 2021 by John Gledhill
Economics, Politics Tax Paying tax or avoiding tax is part of everyday life across the globe. But what kinds of payments are taxes, and how do fiscal systems shape society? Taxes are often conceived of as a... December 2020 by Miranda Sheild Johansson	Politics, Religion Sharia Sharia is a key concept in Islam and our contemporary world. Often translated into English as ‘Islamic law’, it includes financial contracts, criminal justice, and marriage and... November 2020 by Morgan Clarke	Religion, Theory Emic and etic The emic/etic distinction originated in linguistics in the 1950s to designate two complementary standpoints for the analysis of human language and behaviour. It has been... November 2020 by Till Mostowlansky, Andrea Rota
Economics, Politics Neoliberalism ‘Neoliberalism’ is a widely used term that travelled from economic philosophy into policymaking, and from policymaking into critical social scientific discourse in the late twentieth... October 2020 by Natalie Morningstar	Health, Politics Addiction What is addiction? As an umbrella term, addiction is often used to describe activities where there is an overwhelming drive to engage in destructive, distressing or compulsive... October 2020 by Joshua Burraway	Health, Theory Metrics Numbers, enumeration, and the quantification of contemporary life seem to govern our existence more and more. Particularly since the dawn of the twenty-first century, the importance... October 2020 by Marlee Tichenor
Politics, Theory Political ecology Political ecology is a critical research field within anthropology and related disciplines that examines how and why economic structures and power relations drive environmental... September 2020 by Jason Roberts	Economics, Politics Cooperatives Cooperatives are a main means of organization for economic activity, generally operating on principles of equal membership and members’ democratic control of their means of... August 2020 by Theodoros Rakopoulos	Economics, Theory Gifts As one of the oldest forms of social actions that bind people together and as an arresting example of the universality and diversity of humanity, gift exchange has long been a focus... July 2020 by Yunxiang Yan
Kinship, Theory Childhood Children, as the youngest members of our species, exist in all human societies across space and time. But societies differ widely in their understandings of childhood as a... June 2020 by Catherine Allerton	Economics, Politics Hunting and gathering Hunting and gathering constitute the oldest human mode of making a living, and the only one for which there is an uninterrupted record from human origins to the present.... May 2020 by Thomas Widlok	Economics, Health Professionals Professions are institutionalised bodies of specialised knowledge and practice around which divisions of labour within contemporary societies are organised. As well as performing a... April 2020 by Elizabeth Hull
Economics, Politics Money Money is a formidable subject — an intimate object in our everyday lives, a claim over resources, and a topic of academic inquiry. Textbooks define money by its various functions, e.... March 2020 by Allison Truitt	Economics, Politics Farming Farming has become increasingly visible in recent years, following a growing public interest in how food is produced. Anthropologists have been studying farming since the founding of... January 2020 by Andrew Ofstehage	Economics, Politics Water Because water permeates every aspect of human existence, ethnographic accounts describe many forms of engagement with it: for example, its centrality to modes of production; its... December 2019 by Veronica Strang
Economics, Kinship House and home If asked to imagine home, most of us will come to think of a particular house or building. And, for many of us, the quintessential image of home remains the place we grew up in. This... December 2019 by Farhan Samanani, Johannes Lenhard	Religion, Theory Magic Attempts to define and describe magic must reckon with this concept’s slipperiness, as magic is often understood against what supposedly it is not: typically, ‘proper’ religion and ‘... October 2019 by Matteo Benussi	Politics, Theory Revolution Revolutions encompass political mobilizations that attempt rapid transformations of both the nature of political authority and wider social, political, and economic structures.... October 2019 by Alice Wilson
Economics, Politics Mining Mining has occurred for thousands of years, and social anthropologists have studied it for almost a century. This entry explains anthropology's principle findings about mining,... October 2019 by Alex Golub	Health, Politics Autism The concept of autism is historically contingent. It did not exist, in any proper sense, before it was invoked by medical and mental health professionals in the twentieth century.... September 2019 by Ben Belek	Economics, Politics Waste From plastics in the oceans, to the export of toxic materials, waste is an issue that increasingly attracts public attention as well as demands for political and environmental action... August 2019 by Patrick O'Hare
Kinship, Politics Queer anthropology Once a slur, the term ‘queer’ now is used to critique restrictive, dominant norms of respectable conduct and to recast sexual and gender variations in positive terms. With roots in... July 2019 by Ara Wilson	Religion, Theory Animism Animism is a particular sensibility and way of relating to various beings in the world. It involves attributing sentience to other beings that may include persons, animals, plants,... June 2019 by Katherine Swancutt	Health, Politics Global health Global health is a field of expertise that has emerged at the turn of the twenty-first century alongside changing disease profiles, health technologies, and governance structures.... June 2019 by Emily Yates-Doerr, Kenneth Maes
Health, Politics Sport Activities that one can retrospectively label as ‘sport’ have probably been part of human beings’ repertoire for millennia, but sports as we know them today are the product of a... May 2019 by Niko Besnier, Susan Brownell	Economics, Theory Games Though there is no universally accepted definition for what constitutes a ‘game’, games are typically defined as goal-oriented, rules-based activities closely associated with the... May 2019 by Max Watson	Religion, Theory Divination Divination is a widespread cultural practice that takes varied forms worldwide. It can be diagnostic, forecasting, and interventionist, in the sense of changing the receptor’s... April 2019 by Diana Espírito Santo
Politics, Theory Anthropocene ‘The Anthropocene’ is a term that is increasingly used to define a new planetary epoch: one in which humans have become the dominant force shaping Earth’s bio-geophysical composition... January 2019 by Liana Chua, Hannah Fair	Politics, Religion Islam Islam is not an anthropological concept in the way, for example, culture, or even religion, are. People have thought about and discussed Islam long before anthropologists started... October 2018 by Samuli Schielke	Economics, Theory Digital anthropology ‘The digital’ is defined here as new technologies that are ultimately reducible to binary code. These have made many cultural artefacts easier and quicker to both reproduce and to... August 2018 by Daniel Miller
Economics, Religion Charité Cet article aborde la charité comme un terme «étique» qui facilite la comparaison entre des traditions différentes. Les bases théoriques en ont été posées par deux grands... August 2018 by Jonathan Benthall	Health, Religion Death The variety of ways in which death has been handled in human societies has been a source of much scholarly fascination. In this brief overview, anthropological approaches to the... July 2018 by Bob Simpson	Health, Politics Disability Disability is a form of difference that is created when the social participation of someone with an impairment is ‘dis-abled’ by normative expectations and material conditions... June 2018 by Clara Devlieger
Economics, Kinship Adoption What is adoption? To answer this question is to jump directly into one of the key controversies of anthropology: anthropologists, associated for over a century with the close study... June 2018 by Jessaca Leinaweaver	Kinship, Theory Relations To make a topic from one of anthropology’s principal means and objects of study, investigating relations through relations, is offered in the spirit of reflexive enquiry. The entry... May 2018 by Marilyn Strathern	Religion, Theory Animals What role do nonhuman animals play in human social life? This question has long interested anthropologists, who have provided various answers, themselves reflective of broader... May 2018 by Thomas White, Matei Candea
Politics, Religion Cargo cults Cargo cult—the term—appeared in 1945, at the end of the Pacific War. Anthropologists rapidly embraced the neologism to label the Melanesian social movements that had come to their... March 2018 by Lamont Lindstrom	Economics, Politics Precarity Precarity emerged as a central concern in scholarly research and writing in the twenty-first century, partly in response to political mobilizations against unemployment and social... March 2018 by Sharryn Kasmir	Kinship, Theory Ethnography Ethnographic fieldwork, carried out according to the method of long-term participant-observation, is what defines social anthropology. The method is inductive and open-ended. As such... February 2018 by Signe Howell
Politics, Theory Deleuze This entry takes on two subjects. First, it addresses the influence that anthropology had on the work of the mid-twentieth century French philosopher Gilles Deleuze, and second, the... January 2018 by Jon Bialecki	Economics, Religion Charity This entry considers charity as an ‘etic’ term that facilitates comparison between different traditions. Theoretical foundations were laid by two great anthropologists at the... December 2017 by Jonathan Benthall	Economics, Theory Tourism Tourism is a new phenomenon in world history, but today more people travel long distances for this purpose than for any other. This entry traces some main contributions... November 2017 by Rupert Stasch
Economics, Politics Bureaucracy Bureaucracy quite literally translates into rule by public office (‘bureau’). The anthropology of bureaucracy can be seen as falling under two broad approaches. Firstly, there is an... November 2017 by Nayanika Mathur	Politics, Theory Voice Voice is a salient category in our contemporary lives. We speak of marginalised groups ‘lacking voice’ and celebrate their efforts at ‘raising their voices’; we are advised to listen... October 2017 by Marlene Schäfers	Religion, Theory Ontological turn, the ‘Culture’ is in many ways the most fundamental of anthropological concepts. Yet it has been the subject of a range of critical interventions in the course of the discipline’s history,... May 2017 by Paolo Heywood
Religion, Theory Ethics / morality It is possible to argue that the anthropology of ethics has always been part of the discipline but also that it is a radically new and transformative venture. This entry explains why... May 2017 by James Laidlaw	Economics, Politics Feasting Feasts are special meals (food out of the ordinary in kind or quantity) shared among an enlarged circle of people. They are occasions for many kinds of activities, not only eating... October 2016 by Chloe Nahum-Claudel	Politics, Theory Science 'Science' features twice in anthropology. On the one hand, science is an object of anthropological enquiry, in much the same way as ‘kinship’, ‘religion’, or ‘nationalism’.... October 2016 by Matei Candea
Economics, Politics Resistance With images of protest and dissent widespread and frequently circulated in news broadcasts and social media posts, resistance to prevailing power structures seems to be an expected... October 2016 by Fiona Wright	Economics, Politics Anthropology museums and museum anthropology This entry provides an overview of the history, politics and changing roles of anthropology museums. It explores the developing field of museum anthropology, which encompasses the... October 2016 by Anita Herle	Economics, Theory Gambling Gambling occurs when a person commits one or more valuable items (a ‘stake’) to an event or series of events packaged together, and where the result determines a loss or win at a... September 2016 by Anthony Pickles
Religion, Theory Values The concept of values has recently re-emerged as the object of explicit theoretical attention in a number of disciplines, including anthropology. The aim of this entry is to review... September 2016 by Joel Robbins, Julian Sommerschuh	Kinship, Theory Matriliny Matriliny is a way of reckoning kinship descent and belonging through the female line. This entry discusses some of the forms matrilineal kinship may take in practice before... September 2016 by Jessica Johnson	Kinship, Politics Tribe The concept of ‘tribal society’ is one of the most prominent and popular ‘anthropological’ notions of our time, yet within western social and cultural anthropology it has been... September 2016 by David Sneath
Region, Theory Landscape When we think about landscape, we tend to think of natural scenery, empty of people; of a view, spread in front of our eyes; or of a backdrop, a stage for people’s movements and... September 2016 by Paola Filippucci	Region, Theory Mediterraneanist anthropology The Mediterranean is one of the most underrated areas in anthropological imagination. On the one hand, its shores have furnished the most complex formulations of the unfolding... September 2016 by Naor Ben-Yehoyada	Politics, Theory Human rights Human rights, as described in documents such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, are a set of moral and legal principles that apply to all human beings irrespective of... September 2016 by Harri Englund
Economics, Politics Colonialism / postcolonialism The giant composite field of colonialism and postcolonialism studies has had a transforming effect on modern anthropology. Anthropologists have been innovative users of its... September 2016 by Susan Bayly	Politics, Theory Citizenship What is citizenship? The word itself is now used in a wide range of arenas, from citizenship education in schools to development agencies’ programmes of good governance, and public... September 2016 by Sian Lazar

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