Anthropology and Humanism最新文献

This essay experimentally juxtaposes two kinds of extractivism in Jujuy, northwest Argentina—archaeological excavations at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century on the one hand, and contemporary lithium mining in the 21st century on the other. The latter is linked to a government green developmentalist agenda, which is further manifested by the recent taking into service of a hypermodern, electric train, the “solar” train (tren solar), so-called because it is powered by lithium batteries fed from an electric grid which includes solar energy. Extrapolating from a celebratory poem, the essay further suggests that the “properties” that once enthralled the traveler to return to the magic beauty of Jujuy province have now become “witchy properties” of both archaeological and mineral extractivism, disturbing old balances and setting society and environment out of joint.

Drawing on material from 12 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Iceland, this paper zooms in on two Icelandic writers, Andri Snær Magnason and Haukur Ingvarsson, and their works Dreamland (Draumalandið, 2006) and Ecostentialism (Vistarverur, 2018), respectively. These two works relate in different ways to the construction of the hydropower plant Kárahnjúkavirkjun in East Iceland. The hydropower plant was completed in 2006 despite mass protests and political controversy. Broader debates in Icelandic society at the time seemed to coalesce around this particular project. Through their writing, on a backdrop of radical societal change and crises, the two writers sought to reshape landscapes of rural Iceland. Inspired by anthropological studies of imagination, literature, and creativity, I aim to show with these two cases, how literary writing, as a certain creative technology, can unsettle and mend the actual and imaginary landscapes that human beings dwell in. I conclude with suggestions for how this study, using literary texts and “ethnographic biography” inspired by Michael Herzfeld, brings about new anthropological approaches to imagination and representation.

This article explores the entangled practices of drawing and ethnographic fieldwork through a series of illustrated vignettes from Athens. Written from the perspective of a self-described “bad anthropologist,” I reflect on the tensions between theory and experience, visibility and failure, and the messy subjectivity of the fieldworker. Drawing—sketchy, ironic, sometimes raw—is treated neither as a romanticized gesture nor a tool for “impact” or mere “illustration.” Instead, it is foregrounded as a thinking practice, an analytical tool, and a situated act—a way to reckon with what escapes writing, to process visual and affective intensities, and to reimagine relationships with theory, memory, and self. The article critically engages with established scholars not to name-drop but to advance its argument through situated dialogues as a form of theoretical storytelling and speculative fabulation. As an anti-heroic anthropologist, in the article, I challenge the macho tropes of classic fieldwork and the institutional dynamics that determine what counts as “valid” ethnographic experience. Rather than offering generalizable conclusions, I argue for a mode of ethnographic writing and drawing that embraces awkwardness, contradiction, and the freedom to be and feel awful.

In this essay, the two co-authors engage in a conversation about violence, an object escaping and defying language. Francesca is an anthropologist employing notes of psychotherapy sessions as ethnographic material; Arinas is a writer gradually gathering narrative fragments to find the truth in her family history. The essay begins with the circumstances of their encounter and follows their narrative process, intertwining pieces of ethnography, journaling, and fiction. In the exchange with the ethnographer, the writer makes, remakes, and unmakes her truth firstly through self-translation, then through a multilingual conversation, and finally through fictional writing. The two writing practices mingle, becoming fragmented and polyvocal, and offering the possibility of inventing, and not just making sense of, experiences. Thus, truth appears as a multidimensional, paradoxical object: intimacy appears in violence, violence in affection, and poison in a piece of cake. The combination of languages, genres, and voices explodes a story into a bigger, shattered picture of fragments, thus opening up a possibility, as well as a risk, of transformation—of imagining a new world.

At a moment when the US university is in crisis, through a deep exploration of the process of building a new liberal arts university in India, this essay offers a complex but hopeful narrative that allows us to see the liberal arts university, and the humanistic tradition, anew. In doing so, the essay centers the discipline of anthropology, both as object of inquiry and as method, arguing for its vital importance even in an era of program cuts and disciplinary contraction.

Through conversations with artists and fieldwork on both intimately motivated and politically eventful dimensions of the art scene in Amman, Jordan, this article asks how we might understand the role of artistic work in thinking about ethics as a matter of making space to be in, when faced with moral limitations. From the minor story of a broken egg and to the experience of the world being broken by violence, I explore the potential for artistic attunement to make moments of space for ethical life in times of uncertainty, as well as to call attention to the experiential limits of the moral “ordinary.” I propose an experientially grounded attunement to the art of queering the ordinary through a synergetic reading of anthropological work on ethics and morality and by making visible spaces between artist, artwork, anthropologist, and world.

This piece explores radical kinship through patchwork ethnography across multiple intimate and educational spaces. The style is multivocal as the work honors creative, nonlinear, and embodied ways of knowing and crafting kin relationships. I learn intergenerationally from youth, educators, and my daughter, as we build kin to care for one another and heal from harm. Through my art, I share aspects of my inner child's relationship to kinship. This piece theorizes three key takeaways: (1) Radical kinship moves us toward liberatory lifeways and builds the kind of reverent intergenerational processes that dignify childlike vulnerabilities, asymmetries of care, and playful tendencies. (2) Patchwork and creative ethnography provide a caring methodological framework for respecting different embodied and relational ways of co-creating knowledge and (3) This nonlinear multivocal and visual account models a sense of radical kinship between author and reader.

Samia Serageldin's The Cairo House (2000) and Pauline Kaldas's “The House in Old Cairo” (2006) allow a comparative analysis on place dynamics and the psycho-spatial aspects of subjectivity and belonging. This article builds on the premise that place has an ontological implication for its occupants as it allocates a portion of space for them, and also identifies and animates them through its potential to alter their affective experience of the world. In Serageldin's novel and Kaldas's poem, the function of place extends beyond that of a mnemonic tool only, as the co-dependence of place and lived bodies takes on a symbolic layer of meaning through the metaphorization of the family house—that was left in the homeland—as an anchor to the migrant individual's roots. The threat of losing the intergenerational and intersubjective nexus looms over both texts emphasizing the anxiety over the loss of shared cultural heritage and the relations between genealogy, place, remembering, and narrative. Examining the nostalgic yearning for the homeland and the elements of acquiring a sense of belonging to a place, the article delineates the capacity of narratives to function as mnemonicons and the potential of belonging through narratives to adopt the position of place-belongingness.

This article presents the innovative “Future-in-the-Now method,” an ethnographic and theatrical approach designed for anthropological research, particularly effective for futures-anthropologists and those exploring sensitive topics through arts-based methods. By emphasizing the co-creation of a theatrical performance between the ethnographer and research participants, this method transforms the performance into the central site of ethnographic inquiry. The process unfolds in four distinct steps: preliminary fieldwork to gather foundational data, collaborative script and content development, observation and interaction during performances, and subsequent analysis and publication. The Future-in-the-Now method offers unique advantages for ethnographic practice. First, it enhances reach and impact, making research accessible to broader audiences beyond academic circles through participatory theater. Second, it allows for the collection of deep, layered data during performances, revealing insights and reactions that are often obscured in traditional data collection methods. This method's focus on audience responses not only enriches existing ethnographic insights but also introduces new pathways for analysis that emerge from public interactions and reflections on sensitive topics. Finally, through dramatizing collectively imagined scenarios, the Future-in-the-Now method provides a safe space for engaging with contemporary issues, bridging the present and potential futures. This article ultimately argues for the methodological significance of more systemically integrating performance into ethnographic research, promoting a nuanced understanding of complex themes and fostering rich dialogue among participants and audiences alike.

Borpujari, Priyanka, Ian M. Cook, Çiçek İlengiz, Fiona Murphy, Julia Öffen, Johann Sander Puustusmaa, Eva van Roekel, Richard Thornton and Susan Wardell. 2024. “Empathy and Dialogue: Embracing the Art of Creative Review.” Anthropology and Humanism 49(2): 83–87.

There is a misspelling of one of the co-authors’ names. Julia Offen is incorrectly spelled Julia Öffen. The correct spelling is Julia Offen, without an umlaut over the “O” in the last name. The author's name has been corrected in the article.

We apologize for this error.