Created in 2012, Theorizing the Contemporary seeks to extend the horizon of social analysis in new directions, including challenges to what constitutes "theory" in the first place. Theorizing the Contemporary series are reviewed by the editors of Cultural Anthropology; series editors must be current members of the SCA.
Substitution
Substituting one thing for another–things, people, habits–happens all the time. Substitution is so mundane that it can easily be taken for granted as a natural ... More
Coastal Futures
Over the last fifty years, efforts to create, plan, and manage coastal zones have multiplied globally in the face of threats posed by intensifying development a... More
Plantationocene
In what ways does the Plantationocene offer an analytic for specifying a planetary condition? Driven by this question, this collection of short essays provides... More
HandsOn: Touching the Digital Planet
HandsOn is about the extraordinary ways our fingers and hands sense, guide, and grip our digital world. In this series we examine the tensions and connections b... More
Disability as Rupture
Disability offers opportunities to reconceptualize ethnographic practices and anthropological projects. Actualizing these opportunities requires allowing disabi... More
Graphic Ethnography on the Rise
We are witnessing a new wave of ethnographic, multimodal creativity inspired by comics, graphic novels, and creative visual arts. The growth of this "graphic-et... More
Ecologies of War
This collection, Ecologies of War, extends ethnographic attention beyond “war itself” to include forms of war that are often unrecognized as such—in everyday ex... More
Sustaining the Momentum: Reparative Justice for European Colonialism and Slavery
When the Black Lives Matter protests erupted in the U.S in summer 2020 following the murder of George Floyd, the ripple effect around the world was stunning. Di... More
Art and Ethnographic Forms in Dark Times
What are the ethnographic arts through which we know and express the worlds we encounter? How does ethnographic experience become translated into/as art? How ca... More
Multispecies Care in the Sixth Extinction
The rapid spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus reminds us, once more, of the porous boundaries between species, and the social and ecological disasters of growth-driv... More