On ambivalence and aspiration in oil fields of the Ecuadorian Amazon
On ambivalence and aspiration in oil fields of the Ecuadorian Amazon Go to Source
Beyond the “dismal imagery”: Amerindian abdication, repulsion, and ritual opacity in extractivist South America
Beyond the “dismal imagery”: Amerindian abdication, repulsion, and ritual opacity in extractivist South America Go to Source
Theory, ethnography, and ethics in an indigenous phenomenology of oil
Theory, ethnography, and ethics in an indigenous phenomenology of oil Go to Source
Oil on the water
Oil on the water Go to Source
“Mafiacraft” and mafia activity: A dynamic and changing interaction
“Mafiacraft” and mafia activity: A dynamic and changing interaction Deborah Puccio-Den has conducted ethnographic research in Palermo since the mid-1990s, focusing on efforts to criminalize the mafia, both on the…
Invisible things
Invisible things Go to Source
Dislocating responsibility
Dislocating responsibility Puccio-Den’s reflections on mafiacraft are an insightful contribution to the broader project of tracing societal changes in the nature of personal responsibility and how this is contested and…
Mafiacraft, witchcraft, statecraft, or the politics of mafia knowledge and the knowledge of mafia politics
Mafiacraft, witchcraft, statecraft, or the politics of mafia knowledge and the knowledge of mafia politics While praising Deborah Puccio-Den’s proposal for its invitation to a more reflexive kind of mafia…
Staying with the subtlety of life in the oil complex
Staying with the subtlety of life in the oil complex Go to Source
Iron bubbles: Exploring optimism in China’s modern ghost cities
Iron bubbles: Exploring optimism in China’s modern ghost cities Financial bubbles are generally understood retrospectively as ruptures or bursts, indexing some form of radical change. Conversely, this article proposes that…
A time of peace: Divergent temporalities in Jewish–Palestinian peace initiatives
A time of peace: Divergent temporalities in Jewish–Palestinian peace initiatives This article considers the conflicting temporal models of peace among Jewish Israelis, specifically between liberal Zionists who populate the traditional…
The reality of inchoateness
The reality of inchoateness Deborah Puccio-Den, working from long ethnographic experience, has provided an intriguing and challenging account of how the mafia effect—which she approaches through her own coinage of…
Mafiacraft: How to do things with silence
Mafiacraft: How to do things with silence How to construct an ethnography about such a phenomenon as “the mafia,” shrouded in silence? What methods might anthropologists use to investigate silence…
Crafting “mafia”: Performative and material practices
Crafting “mafia”: Performative and material practices Go to Source
Headless queues: Disorder and disorientation in a Zimbabwean market, 2007–2008
Headless queues: Disorder and disorientation in a Zimbabwean market, 2007–2008 In this paper, I analyze Zimbabweans’ efforts to make sense of ubiquitous queues for basic goods during a period of…
Calling through the water jar: Domestic objects in Nahua emotional assemblages
Calling through the water jar: Domestic objects in Nahua emotional assemblages This article re-examines human–object relations in an Indigenous Nahua context in Mexico. Inspired by the Deleuzian notion of assemblage,…
Deception in practice: Hunting and bullfighting entanglements in southern Spain
Deception in practice: Hunting and bullfighting entanglements in southern Spain Deception is a recurrent strategy deployed in the relations between human beings, between humans and animals, and even between animals,…
Brand displaced: Trademarking, unmarking, and making the generic
Brand displaced: Trademarking, unmarking, and making the generic In this paper, I examine the creation of prop “non-brands” in the United States movie and television industry. In taking up the…
Material deceptions and the qualities of time
Material deceptions and the qualities of time Go to Source
Life and its inflections in Kilimanjaro: Becoming and being beyond the metaphoric
Life and its inflections in Kilimanjaro: Becoming and being beyond the metaphoric This article explores a set of vernacular notions used by the Chagga-speaking people of Tanzania’s Kilimanjaro Region to…