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Politics, Theory Populism Populism is a conception of political representation that views ‘the people’ as the primary political actor and the basis of political sovereignty. As populism does not refer to a... March 2025 by Julia Fierman	Economics, Politics Finance Finance is a critical dimension of life for most contemporary human beings. Finance refers to the management of money as debt, credit, or capital. Financial practices and techniques... February 2025 by Daromir Rudnyckyj	Economics, Politics Commodity and supply chains The global circulation of goods connects economic processes worldwide—from extraction and production to distribution, consumption, and waste disposal. The resultant web of economic... December 2024 by Dagna Rams
Economics, Politics Energy Energy is central to everyday life and industrial production, and is a major concern and focus of public policy. Its production from different sources, its use, and... November 2024 by Katja Müller	Politics, Religion Agency In anthropology, agency is broadly defined as the socio-culturally mediated capacity to act. Classically, the concept has been used to analyse how people try to influence, or change... August 2024 by Julia Vorhölter	Economics, Politics Work/labour Most of our lives are spent working, as we frequently engage in purposeful activity to build and maintain our physical and social worlds. The anthropology of work and labour provides... July 2024 by Jasmine Folz, Rachel Smith
Economics, Politics Debt Debt is meant to be about repaying what you owe, but it often accompanies inequality, oppression, and unrest. Responding to this paradox, this entry explores a variety of debt... March 2024 by Ryan Davey	Health, Politics Surveillance Surveillance—watching over through human and/or non-human technologies for an intended purpose—can connote a dystopian imaginary in which all activity becomes... December 2023 by Vita Peacock, Mikkel Kenni Bruun, Claire Elisabeth Dungey, Matan Shapiro	Politics, Theory Race and racism Racism is premised on the idea that humanity could and should be divided into distinct biological groups or ‘races’, and that different races stand in a ranked and hierarchical... November 2023 by Sindre Bangstad, Agustín Fuentes
Politics, Region Jean Price-Mars L’anthropologue Jean Price-Mars est une figure importante de l’Atlantique noir. Diplomate, écrivain, homme politique et anthropologue, l’auteur a exercé une influence qui va au-delà... May 2023 by Jhon Picard Byron	Health, Politics Diabetes Type 2 diabetes mellitus is a global disease that involves the body’s impaired ability to regulate blood sugar (glucose) due to malfunctioning insulin, a hormone produced in the... May 2023 by Shir Lerman Ginzburg	Economics, Politics Resilience 'Resilience’ is becoming a new policy buzzword. The term describes the ability to recover from expected and unexpected situations, stresses, or threats in order to sustain, thrive,... March 2023 by Kathrin Eitel
Politics, Theory Infrastructure Infrastructures are the arteries of our contemporary world: roads, railways, airports, ports, pipelines, fibre optics cables, data, and logistics centres. Built above and below... March 2023 by Hannah Knox, Evelina Gambino	Politics, Theory Silence Silence is a common occurrence in everyday social interactions, yet anthropological research, like most research in the social sciences and humanities, has mostly focused on what... February 2023 by Ana Dragojlovic, Annemarie Samuels	Politics, Theory Photography Human beings have never encountered as many photographs as we do today. They surround us in public spaces, and populate the numerous screens we access in our daily lives.... December 2022 by Brent Luvaas
Politics, Theory Art The definition of ‘art’ is extremely complicated. Its meaning has shifted radically, in particular in the last century. Originally, in Latin, it meant ‘craft’, but then for... September 2022 by Roger Sansi	Economics, Politics Cash transfers Cash transfers—direct regular and non-contributory payments to eligible individuals—are one of the most discussed, celebrated, and contested social assistance innovations of the... September 2022 by Martin Fotta, Mario Schmidt	Kinship, Politics Ethnicity Ethnicity is a concept that marks social belonging as much as it does difference, and that lies at the heart of political debates as well as debates across academic disciplines today... August 2022 by Sara Shneiderman , Emily Amburgey
Economics, Politics Egalitarianism Anthropology makes a unique contribution to the study of egalitarianism. While ‘egalitarianism’ has long been the purview of moral philosophy, anthropology is unique in that it is the... April 2022 by Megan Laws	Politics, Theory Prefigurative politics ‘Prefigurative politics’ refers to how activists embody and enact, within their activism, the socialities and practices they foster for broader society. Inspired by anarchist... March 2022 by Guilherme Fians	Health, Politics Pandemics Pandemics tend to be defined as large epidemics, i.e. as sudden and widespread rises in disease incidence that occur over a very wide area, cross international boundaries, and affect... March 2022 by Frédéric Keck
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	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
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	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	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, 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	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	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, 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, 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	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
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	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	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	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	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, 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	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	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
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	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

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