Natalia Buitron, Florian Mühlfried, Hans Steinmüller
Egalitarianism is often idealized, but many anthropologists have noted its potential for nightmare scenarios involving envy, mistrust, and violence. This introduction outlines a framework for understanding the negative emotions and violence associated with the forces of commensuration that are necessary to make people equal. The levelling effect of commensuration stands in tension with autonomy and mutuality; and may be contained through imaginative social practice. Drawing on ethnographic examples ranging from Neolithic architecture to contemporary state formation, we distinguish three fundamental modes of egalitarianism: ‘non‐egalitarianism’, based on the incommensurability of beings; ‘segmentary egalitarianism’, which draws equivalences within defined groups and is based on partial commensuration; and ‘general egalitarianism’ based on universal and absolute commensuration. In non‐egalitarianism, the nightmare is the emergence of a sovereign central perspective. The horrors of segmentary egalitarianism are located at the boundaries of well‐established in‐groups, and personified by non‐equals above, below, and elsewhere. General egalitarianism produces subjects that are ‘more equal than others’ and forces new in‐group/out‐group divides. Throughout, the violent aspects of egalitarian world‐making – such as enforcing measures, drawing boundaries, and suppressing incommensurabilities – are explored not just as constraints but also as generative social forces.
{"title":"Nightmare egalitarianism: Commensuration, autonomy, and imagination","authors":"Natalia Buitron, Florian Mühlfried, Hans Steinmüller","doi":"10.1111/1467-9655.70062","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9655.70062","url":null,"abstract":"Egalitarianism is often idealized, but many anthropologists have noted its potential for nightmare scenarios involving envy, mistrust, and violence. This introduction outlines a framework for understanding the negative emotions and violence associated with the forces of commensuration that are necessary to make people equal. The levelling effect of commensuration stands in tension with autonomy and mutuality; and may be contained through imaginative social practice. Drawing on ethnographic examples ranging from Neolithic architecture to contemporary state formation, we distinguish three fundamental modes of egalitarianism: ‘non‐egalitarianism’, based on the incommensurability of beings; ‘segmentary egalitarianism’, which draws equivalences within defined groups and is based on partial commensuration; and ‘general egalitarianism’ based on universal and absolute commensuration. In non‐egalitarianism, the nightmare is the emergence of a sovereign central perspective. The horrors of segmentary egalitarianism are located at the boundaries of well‐established in‐groups, and personified by non‐equals above, below, and elsewhere. General egalitarianism produces subjects that are ‘more equal than others’ and forces new in‐group/out‐group divides. Throughout, the violent aspects of egalitarian world‐making – such as enforcing measures, drawing boundaries, and suppressing incommensurabilities – are explored not just as constraints but also as generative social forces.","PeriodicalId":47904,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute","volume":"3 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2026-02-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146146023","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Notes on contributors","authors":"","doi":"10.1111/1467-9655.70060","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9655.70060","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47904,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute","volume":"22 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2026-02-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146122048","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Known for its large settlements, monumental buildings, and elaborate funerary practices, the early Neolithic of the Near East is often seen as a case‐study of emergent inequalities. Yet, none of those markers correlate with pronounced distinctions of wealth or status. Plastered human skulls exemplify this issue: although they have been assumed to portray remarkable individuals, they were in fact deliberately deposited in collective sets that enhanced their incomplete and generic features. The immediate intelligibility of a face gives way to uncanny resemblances. In this respect, the interpretation of early Neolithic remains is not unlike that of dreams. This essay uses dreamwork as an analogy for interpreting archaeological evidence as evocative distortion of the past, rather than its mirror representation. In the seemingly egalitarian early Neolithic of the Near East, hierarchy existed without translating, as we would expect, into a single discrete scale of social differentiation. Instead, it operated in a fractal dimension that lay latent in interpersonal relations and intermittently appears as visions of composite identities in artistic or mortuary practices. Conversely, the individuation of bodies in the archaeological assemblage is not the relatable sign of a political order, but rather its manifest perversion: a nightmare of solitude.
{"title":"Nightmares of solitude: collectivism and the body politic in the Pre‐Pottery Neolithic","authors":"Rémi Hadad","doi":"10.1111/1467-9655.70069","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9655.70069","url":null,"abstract":"Known for its large settlements, monumental buildings, and elaborate funerary practices, the early Neolithic of the Near East is often seen as a case‐study of emergent inequalities. Yet, none of those markers correlate with pronounced distinctions of wealth or status. Plastered human skulls exemplify this issue: although they have been assumed to portray remarkable individuals, they were in fact deliberately deposited in collective sets that enhanced their incomplete and generic features. The immediate intelligibility of a face gives way to uncanny resemblances. In this respect, the interpretation of early Neolithic remains is not unlike that of dreams. This essay uses dreamwork as an analogy for interpreting archaeological evidence as evocative distortion of the past, rather than its mirror representation. In the seemingly egalitarian early Neolithic of the Near East, hierarchy existed without translating, as we would expect, into a single discrete scale of social differentiation. Instead, it operated in a fractal dimension that lay latent in interpersonal relations and intermittently appears as visions of composite identities in artistic or mortuary practices. Conversely, the individuation of bodies in the archaeological assemblage is not the relatable sign of a political order, but rather its manifest perversion: a nightmare of solitude.","PeriodicalId":47904,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute","volume":"31 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2026-02-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146109853","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In the central highlands of Odisha, India, Kutia Kondh families navigate a precarious reality shaped by productive autonomy, decentralized authority, and material and relational uncertainty. Abundance and destitution are finely balanced in a world where humans, animals, ancestors, and spirits are co‐present and co‐dependent but also opaque and unpredictable. A significant amount of ‘tact’ is therefore required to create enduring links of mutuality whilst also respecting the autonomy of the parties involved. Tactful action appears at multiple scales: everyday relational negotiations, shamanic dialogues, and ritual sacrifice are attempts to bring the uncertainty and heterogeneity of life into some kind of temporary orbit. These tactful elicitations of mutuality are a way to manage the difficult dead, unsatiated spirits, and uncanny therianthropes – nightmares of unmanaged commensuration in a situation of intense more‐than‐human mutuality. While the Kutia have a long history of ‘segmentary egalitarianism’ in regional politics, the everyday management of relational precarity in Kutia villages is opposed to any sense of equality‐as‐equivalence. Kutia families ultimately grapple with different egalitarian registers in the mutualities of upland life. Alongside egalitarian boundary work in communal relations, there is the newer civic egalitarianism of the Odisha state – an egalitarian register at a much larger scale, accompanied by new nightmares of total, tactless commensuration.
{"title":"Tactile tensions: uncertainty, mutuality, and therianthropic nightmares in Highland Odisha","authors":"Sam Wilby","doi":"10.1111/1467-9655.70064","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9655.70064","url":null,"abstract":"In the central highlands of Odisha, India, Kutia Kondh families navigate a precarious reality shaped by productive autonomy, decentralized authority, and material and relational uncertainty. Abundance and destitution are finely balanced in a world where humans, animals, ancestors, and spirits are co‐present and co‐dependent but also opaque and unpredictable. A significant amount of ‘tact’ is therefore required to create enduring links of mutuality whilst also respecting the autonomy of the parties involved. Tactful action appears at multiple scales: everyday relational negotiations, shamanic dialogues, and ritual sacrifice are attempts to bring the uncertainty and heterogeneity of life into some kind of temporary orbit. These tactful elicitations of mutuality are a way to manage the difficult dead, unsatiated spirits, and uncanny therianthropes – nightmares of unmanaged commensuration in a situation of intense more‐than‐human mutuality. While the Kutia have a long history of ‘segmentary egalitarianism’ in regional politics, the everyday management of relational precarity in Kutia villages is opposed to any sense of equality‐as‐equivalence. Kutia families ultimately grapple with different egalitarian registers in the mutualities of upland life. Alongside egalitarian boundary work in communal relations, there is the newer civic egalitarianism of the Odisha state – an egalitarian register at a much larger scale, accompanied by new nightmares of total, tactless commensuration.","PeriodicalId":47904,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute","volume":"294 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2026-02-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146109854","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This essay examines the spectres haunting ideas of egalitarianism among Tashelhiyt‐speaking communities in the Moroccan High Atlas: first, the tyrant, an obvious frontal threat to ideas of equality; and then the vastly more complex figure of the thief ( amkhar ). Such figures abound in the principal local narrative genre, folktales, which constitute a privileged site of reflection on local social relations. This essay focuses on Hedgehog, the anti‐hero of the genre and a trickster figure par excellence. It argues that these narratives speak to and of a deeper societal tension. Acts of guile or theft embody a paradox central to the community's egalitarian values: they are both the condition that enables autonomy and the force that can undermine it. Through this lens, Hedgehog emerges as a symbol of the ‘nightmare of equality’, illustrating how egalitarian societies grapple with internal contradictions inherent to the pursuit of uncoerced independence.
{"title":"Hail to the thief: spectral egalitarianism in the Moroccan High Atlas","authors":"Matthew Carey","doi":"10.1111/1467-9655.70067","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9655.70067","url":null,"abstract":"This essay examines the spectres haunting ideas of egalitarianism among Tashelhiyt‐speaking communities in the Moroccan High Atlas: first, the tyrant, an obvious frontal threat to ideas of equality; and then the vastly more complex figure of the thief ( <jats:italic>amkhar</jats:italic> ). Such figures abound in the principal local narrative genre, folktales, which constitute a privileged site of reflection on local social relations. This essay focuses on Hedgehog, the anti‐hero of the genre and a trickster figure par excellence. It argues that these narratives speak to and of a deeper societal tension. Acts of guile or theft embody a paradox central to the community's egalitarian values: they are both the condition that enables autonomy and the force that can undermine it. Through this lens, Hedgehog emerges as a symbol of the ‘nightmare of equality’, illustrating how egalitarian societies grapple with internal contradictions inherent to the pursuit of uncoerced independence.","PeriodicalId":47904,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute","volume":"285 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2026-02-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146101404","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nyau masked dancers embodying a variety of people, animals, and objects appear at many public events in Chewa areas of Malawi. Understood to be the physical manifestation of ancestral spirits, these entities are classified as ‘not human’ and transgress ordinary morality, mocking and threatening audiences. At the same time, their appearance ensures the moral integrity and reproduction of a Chewa village as a particular type of political community, a cosmic village polity. In this polity, the ability of the Nyau to mediate and balance the mutual relations between humans and ancestral spirits represents a distinct form of local sovereignty. From their extra‐moral position, they mimetically transform social reality and sacralize human potential. In doing so, they address fundamental tensions in Chewa society – especially those linked to emerging inequalities and fears of witchcraft. Where these tensions threaten social relations, the Nyau create a ‘state of exception’, suspending everyday morality and rendering human potential incommensurable. Through this, they help sustain the precarious balance between autonomy and mutuality in Chewa sociality.
{"title":"Society beyond morality: mimesis, sovereignty, and being not‐human in the Nyau associations of Malawi","authors":"Sam Farrell","doi":"10.1111/1467-9655.70066","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9655.70066","url":null,"abstract":"Nyau masked dancers embodying a variety of people, animals, and objects appear at many public events in Chewa areas of Malawi. Understood to be the physical manifestation of ancestral spirits, these entities are classified as ‘not human’ and transgress ordinary morality, mocking and threatening audiences. At the same time, their appearance ensures the moral integrity and reproduction of a Chewa village as a particular type of political community, a cosmic village polity. In this polity, the ability of the Nyau to mediate and balance the mutual relations between humans and ancestral spirits represents a distinct form of local sovereignty. From their extra‐moral position, they mimetically transform social reality and sacralize human potential. In doing so, they address fundamental tensions in Chewa society – especially those linked to emerging inequalities and fears of witchcraft. Where these tensions threaten social relations, the Nyau create a ‘state of exception’, suspending everyday morality and rendering human potential incommensurable. Through this, they help sustain the precarious balance between autonomy and mutuality in Chewa sociality.","PeriodicalId":47904,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute","volume":"67 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2026-02-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146101368","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Towards the end of their Introduction, the editors of this special issue suggest that a principal challenge in ethnographic description is ‘how to measure the measures of others’. It is their own measure of persons, say, or of transactions, on which anthropologists frequently draw in adjudicating social phenomena, not least when characterizing polities as ‘egalitarian’. Rather than presupposing the properties of egalitarianism, the editors ask instead what kinds of commensuration create the conditions of equality. This sparkling collection offers a series of responses that opens up possibilities for approaching afresh a topic that for many has seemed exhausted by too much discussion – or accompanied by too little, as when the epithet is used as a place‐holder gesturing towards certain presumptions without examining them to their limits. Thus writers – myself included – may connive in shorthand usages, as in referring to ‘egalitarian’ sociality in circumstances where it flourishes among men (or women) in everything but their relations with women (or men). This volume suggests there is something more interesting in such abbreviation, or containment, than first seems apparent. Across these essays, the simplest of questions, what kind of equality is at issue, produces a much needed provocation to description. And a breath of fresh air.
{"title":"Measuring up: an afterword","authors":"Marilyn Strathern","doi":"10.1111/1467-9655.70059","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9655.70059","url":null,"abstract":"Towards the end of their Introduction, the editors of this special issue suggest that a principal challenge in ethnographic description is ‘how to measure the measures of others’. It is their own measure of persons, say, or of transactions, on which anthropologists frequently draw in adjudicating social phenomena, not least when characterizing polities as ‘egalitarian’. Rather than presupposing the properties of egalitarianism, the editors ask instead what kinds of commensuration create the conditions of equality. This sparkling collection offers a series of responses that opens up possibilities for approaching afresh a topic that for many has seemed exhausted by too much discussion – or accompanied by too little, as when the epithet is used as a place‐holder gesturing towards certain presumptions without examining them to their limits. Thus writers – myself included – may connive in shorthand usages, as in referring to ‘egalitarian’ sociality in circumstances where it flourishes among men (or women) in everything but their relations with women (or men). This volume suggests there is something more interesting in such abbreviation, or containment, than first seems apparent. Across these essays, the simplest of questions, what kind of equality is at issue, produces a much needed provocation to description. And a breath of fresh air.","PeriodicalId":47904,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute","volume":"5 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2026-02-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146101369","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article demonstrates that while egalitarianism has long remained a social goal for many, the social costs are often high. The case material stems from highland northeast Georgia before the region's integration into the Russian Empire in the nineteenth century. Based on an analysis of the interplay between religion and everyday politics, it shows how egalitarian relationships among men were directly contingent on affirmations of hierarchy, evidenced in the exclusion of superiors and inferiors. The superiors were metahuman beings who ruled like feudal lords in a region that had protected itself against ‘real’ feudal domination for centuries. However, the power of these metahumans was spatially and temporally restricted. The excluded inferiors were women who were declared dangerous to men and metahumans alike due to menstruation. Such ‘segmentary egalitarianism’ entails both an emancipatory and an oppressive component. The emancipatory element takes off from the revolt against victimhood and is inherent to the restriction of metahuman governance. The oppressive moment replicates hierarchy in egalitarianism by excluding and suppressing people who are perceived as similar, but sufficiently different.
{"title":"Nightmares (un‐)limited: segmentary egalitarianism in northeast highland Georgia","authors":"Florian Mühlfried","doi":"10.1111/1467-9655.70068","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9655.70068","url":null,"abstract":"This article demonstrates that while egalitarianism has long remained a social goal for many, the social costs are often high. The case material stems from highland northeast Georgia before the region's integration into the Russian Empire in the nineteenth century. Based on an analysis of the interplay between religion and everyday politics, it shows how egalitarian relationships among men were directly contingent on affirmations of hierarchy, evidenced in the exclusion of superiors and inferiors. The superiors were metahuman beings who ruled like feudal lords in a region that had protected itself against ‘real’ feudal domination for centuries. However, the power of these metahumans was spatially and temporally restricted. The excluded inferiors were women who were declared dangerous to men and metahumans alike due to menstruation. Such ‘segmentary egalitarianism’ entails both an emancipatory and an oppressive component. The emancipatory element takes off from the revolt against victimhood and is inherent to the restriction of metahuman governance. The oppressive moment replicates hierarchy in egalitarianism by excluding and suppressing people who are perceived as similar, but sufficiently different.","PeriodicalId":47904,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute","volume":"57 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2026-02-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146101367","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The autonomy of the United Wa State Army of Myanmar today is said to be based on the egalitarianism of Wa communities in the past. The analysis of commensuration in kinship, sacrifice, and war challenges these portrayals of autonomy and egalitarianism. In the past, the making and taking of lives could not be measured in absolute terms but required situationally specific and relational commensuration. Since the 1960s, commensuration has intensified with modern technologies and communication networks, especially in the context of military government, enabling new scales and benchmarks for measuring social relations. Military organization and cultural authenticity are based on absolute measures and exact equivalences, at least in theory. In practice, the levelling of human lives is resisted in the social relations of para‐militarism, and in the cultural production of para‐nationalism. Assessing the scale and violence of measurement, the article describes how relations of autonomy and mutuality changed from sacrificial exchange in the past to para‐nationalist sacrifice today, without ever becoming ‘egalitarian’ in the strict sense of the term.
{"title":"No egalitarianism in the Wa hills: relative commensuration in kinship, sacrifice, and war","authors":"Hans Steinmüller","doi":"10.1111/1467-9655.70065","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9655.70065","url":null,"abstract":"The autonomy of the United Wa State Army of Myanmar today is said to be based on the egalitarianism of Wa communities in the past. The analysis of commensuration in kinship, sacrifice, and war challenges these portrayals of autonomy and egalitarianism. In the past, the making and taking of lives could not be measured in absolute terms but required situationally specific and relational commensuration. Since the 1960s, commensuration has intensified with modern technologies and communication networks, especially in the context of military government, enabling new scales and benchmarks for measuring social relations. Military organization and cultural authenticity are based on absolute measures and exact equivalences, at least in theory. In practice, the levelling of human lives is resisted in the social relations of para‐militarism, and in the cultural production of para‐nationalism. Assessing the scale and violence of measurement, the article describes how relations of autonomy and mutuality changed from sacrificial exchange in the past to para‐nationalist sacrifice today, without ever becoming ‘egalitarian’ in the strict sense of the term.","PeriodicalId":47904,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute","volume":"80 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2026-01-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146089520","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article argues that the current way of thinking about ethics in sport in primarily biomedical terms, and in particular in terms of the presence of particular pharmaceutical substances, fails to account for broader notions of sporting ethics and fairness in the Global South. Ethnographic material from Ethiopia and Cameroon on attitudes towards doping, ‘spiritual doping’, and age tampering demonstrates that athletes themselves are far more concerned with issues of global inequality and the fair distribution of resources. Current statements on sporting ethics are revealed as at once too narrow (focusing only on individual responsibility and biological factors) and too abstract (without accounting for specific social and economic realities). We extend the notion of ‘athletic citizenship’ to go beyond ‘biological citizenship’, and argue that the current biomedical model of sporting ethics works to obscure the structural and racialized inequalities that define global sports. Beyond sport, our analysis also demonstrates that the boundaries of citizenship are today often policed through hybridized formations that are not limited to the legal systems of individual countries or to straightforward processes of regulation, but which extend to quasi‐legal, transnational entities that police specific kinds of bodies.
{"title":"‘Vitamins’, shortcuts, and athletic citizenship in Ethiopia and Cameroon: considering sporting ethics beyond biomedicine","authors":"Michael Crawley, Uroš Kovač","doi":"10.1111/1467-9655.70022","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9655.70022","url":null,"abstract":"This article argues that the current way of thinking about ethics in sport in primarily biomedical terms, and in particular in terms of the presence of particular pharmaceutical substances, fails to account for broader notions of sporting ethics and fairness in the Global South. Ethnographic material from Ethiopia and Cameroon on attitudes towards doping, ‘spiritual doping’, and age tampering demonstrates that athletes themselves are far more concerned with issues of global inequality and the fair distribution of resources. Current statements on sporting ethics are revealed as at once too narrow (focusing only on individual responsibility and biological factors) and too abstract (without accounting for specific social and economic realities). We extend the notion of ‘athletic citizenship’ to go beyond ‘biological citizenship’, and argue that the current biomedical model of sporting ethics works to obscure the structural and racialized inequalities that define global sports. Beyond sport, our analysis also demonstrates that the boundaries of citizenship are today often policed through hybridized formations that are not limited to the legal systems of individual countries or to straightforward processes of regulation, but which extend to quasi‐legal, transnational entities that police specific kinds of bodies.","PeriodicalId":47904,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute","volume":"49 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2026-01-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146032745","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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