Published between 2013 and 2015, Field Notes drew inspiration from Donna Haraway’s take on cat's cradle as a “game of relaying patterns.” In each series, four scholars wrote short pieces that built on each other in turn, using the keywords of provocation, translation, deviation, and integration as structuring devices.

The Field Notes section of the SCA website is no longer active. However, the Society’s journal does publish short-form essays that are in explicit conversation with one another over a shared theme or concept in the Colloquy section.

Fat

Fat

Susan Greenhalgh, Jessica Hardin, Harris Solomon, and Michael Montoya contribute to this Field Notes series on fat.... More

Illegality

Illegality

This month’s Field Notes series asks four contributors to reflect on the anthropological interest in illegality. Traditional anthropological studies approache... More

Activism

Activism

For decades now, the field of anthropology has produced a vast amount of scholarship on social movements and protest, providing unique insights into the dynam... More

Care

Care

This month, Field Notes invites four scholars to consider the theme of care. What has anthropology contributed to the study of care? What does it provoke? How d... More

Sport

Sport

Sport has recently attracted close ethnographic interest as an object of discipline, a realm of popular culture through spectatorship, and through the contemp... More

Aging

Aging

This month, Field Notes invites four scholars to consider the theme of aging. What has anthropology contributed to the study of aging? How does aging and associ... More

The Politics of Memory

The Politics of Memory

Collective memory is increasingly the language by which individuals and groups struggle over their own identity and makes demands in the public sphere. Since ... More

Food

Food

Julie Guthman, Dylan Gordon, Heather Paxson, and Brad Weiss consider the topic of food in this Field Notes series.... More

Studying Unformed Objects

Studying Unformed Objects

. . . it is not enough for us to open our eyes, to pay attention, to be aware, for new objects suddenly to light up and emerge out of the ground.—Michel Foucaul... More

Invisibilities

Invisibilities

Many scholars have noted vision’s privileged place within modern knowledge production, and contemporary technologies—from Google Earth to video cameras for lapa... More