Browse Entries

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
Religion, Theory 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	Politics, Theory 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 marginalized 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, 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 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
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	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	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
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	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	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
Theory, Politics 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

Top

top