Browse Entries

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	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	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

Top

top