Unable to see the diagnosis: Harmed bodies and oil extraction in Peruvian Amazonia
Unable to see the diagnosis: Harmed bodies and oil extraction in Peruvian Amazonia This article discusses two distinct notions of harm, wakllichishka and oil harm, and two distinct ways of…
Migration, village sociality, and mistrust: An exploration
Migration, village sociality, and mistrust: An exploration This article examines the phenomenon of migration in India’s villages. Drawing on research in Jharkhand and Maharashtra and selected village ethnographies it illustrates…
There was no future in the past: Time and the environment in rural Namibia
There was no future in the past: Time and the environment in rural Namibia To explain how Namibian pastoralists envision the future of the climate and the environment, I develop…
Video footage and the grain of practice
Video footage and the grain of practice In his essay on the cockfight, Clifford Geertz charted a now familiar course in anthropological argument. He showed how the minute details of…
Ethnography as creative improvisation: Exploring methods in (post) pandemic times
Ethnography as creative improvisation: Exploring methods in (post) pandemic times This article discusses the possibilities and limitations of digital creative methods developed by the author in response to lockdown and…
Uncanny ethics: Locating the coordinates of the ethical in the COVID-19 pandemic
Uncanny ethics: Locating the coordinates of the ethical in the COVID-19 pandemic The recent anthropological focus on “ordinary ethics” emerges out of a concern to attend to the ethical aspect…
The sacred unbound: Insufficient rituals, excess life, and divine agency in rural Tamil Nadu
The sacred unbound: Insufficient rituals, excess life, and divine agency in rural Tamil Nadu Dissonances between human expectations and actual experiences of sacred presence and actions—as materialized in unexplained deaths,…
Home as a second skin: A contribution to a theory of magic (of tidying)
Home as a second skin: A contribution to a theory of magic (of tidying) In this article, I describe a “magical” dimension in the work of home organizers (HOs) in…
The logic of magic: Reading Wittgenstein’s remarks on Frazer’s The golden bough
The logic of magic: Reading Wittgenstein’s remarks on Frazer’s The golden bough This article centers on a close reading of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Remarks on Frazer’s The golden bough, showing how…
Economy, emulation, and equality: Sociogenesis in the postsocialist capitalocene: Gudeman Lecture, University of Minnesota, March 21, 2022
Economy, emulation, and equality: Sociogenesis in the postsocialist capitalocene: Gudeman Lecture, University of Minnesota, March 21, 2022 Economy and emulation are freighted concepts. They draw attention to universal phenomena, the…
Magic, metaphysics, and methods
Magic, metaphysics, and methods Go to Source
In the Saunas I’m Either Invisible or Camouflaged: Colonial Fantasies and Imaginations in Sydney’s Gay Saunas
In the Saunas I’m Either Invisible or Camouflaged: Colonial Fantasies and Imaginations in Sydney’s Gay Saunas Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, Ahead of Print. I analyze racism in Sydney’s gay sauna…
I am anthropologist – But where is the field? On fieldwork, intimacy, and home
I am anthropologist – But where is the field? On fieldwork, intimacy, and home Ethnography, Ahead of Print. This article was prompted by a question: how can one be anthropologist…
Close quarters. Sailing the murky waters of an ethnography ‘at-home’
Close quarters. Sailing the murky waters of an ethnography ‘at-home’ Ethnography, Ahead of Print. This paper examines the tensions, struggles, and opportunities of doing ethnographies ‘at-home’. For the purpose of…
The Janus Face of Organizational Knowing
The Janus Face of Organizational Knowing Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, Ahead of Print. This article challenges our current understanding of the role of knowing for organizational participation by discussing how,…
Teaching Myanmar students under the Gaokao policy in a borderland school: Teachers’ challenges and agency
Teaching Myanmar students under the Gaokao policy in a borderland school: Teachers’ challenges and agency Ethnography, Ahead of Print. This study examines the classroom interactions and agentive practices of a…
Vulnerability-Making at Europe’s Edge: How Policies, Documents, and Spatiality Intra-Act in the Context of Young Refugees
Vulnerability-Making at Europe’s Edge: How Policies, Documents, and Spatiality Intra-Act in the Context of Young Refugees Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, Ahead of Print. When young refugees who arrive in the…
Contested knowledges: Negotiating the epistemic politics of engaged activist ethnography
Contested knowledges: Negotiating the epistemic politics of engaged activist ethnography Ethnography, Ahead of Print. This article offers a methodological reflection on what it means to practise politically engaged ethnography with…
‘Military timescapes’: The corporeal experience of time in an Israel defense forces reserve combat unit
‘Military timescapes’: The corporeal experience of time in an Israel defense forces reserve combat unit Ethnography, Ahead of Print. This article explores the concept of time among combat reservists in…
Inside American End-of-Life Doula Trainings through Analytic Autoethnography: A Social Movement for Death Positivity Manifests in a New Profession
Inside American End-of-Life Doula Trainings through Analytic Autoethnography: A Social Movement for Death Positivity Manifests in a New Profession Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, Ahead of Print. End-of-life doulas (EOLDs) represent…