Created in 2011, Hot Spots goes beyond the headlines to consider current events and pressing global issues from the perspective of anthropologists and others on the scene. Hot Spots series are reviewed by the editors of Cultural Anthropology; series editors must be current members of the SCA.

How to Submit

View the submission guidelines. Please email [email protected] with any questions.

Russia’s War on Ukraine

Russia’s War on Ukraine

Russia launched its unprovoked war of aggression on Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Anthropologists, with intimate experience on the ground, are striving to conte... More

The Damage Wrought: Immigration Before, Under, and After Trump

The Damage Wrought: Immigration Before, Under, and After Trump

The anthropologists and activists gathered for this series have long been on the front lines fighting for migrant and racial justice. They have assisted familie... More

Firestorm: Critical Approaches to Forest Death and Life

Firestorm: Critical Approaches to Forest Death and Life

The earth is aflame. The now annual fires—in Brazil, Indonesia, Australia, the United States, and beyond—are the most visible way that forests are dying. Forest... More

Technology and Anthropological Ways of Knowing

Technology and Anthropological Ways of Knowing

In this series, we ask anthropologists working in tech to reflect on the place of anthropology in their quotidian practices and professional lives. We use the d... More

3.11 Politics in Disaster Japan: Ten Years Later

3.11 Politics in Disaster Japan: Ten Years Later

In July 2011, three months after the Tohoku tsunami and subsequent nuclear reactor destabilization, we published the first Hot Spot series on the Society for Cu... More

American Fascism

American Fascism

“Every age has its own fascism,” Primo Levi famously wrote in his essay, “A Past We Thought Would Never Return.” “And we see the warning signs wherever the conc... More

Majoritarian Politics in South Asia

Majoritarian Politics in South Asia

The last decade has been witness to the seemingly meteoric rise and consolidation of a wide range of majoritarian and authoritarian political regimes across Sou... More

The Psychedelic Revival

The Psychedelic Revival

Over the last decade, psychedelics—named for their “mind-manifesting” quality—have made a comeback in modern science, public discourse, and cultural significanc... More

Responding to an Unfolding Pandemic: Asian Medicines and Covid-19

Responding to an Unfolding Pandemic: Asian Medicines and Covid-19

Scholars across disciplines working on Asian medicines are currently encountering a multitude of responses to the ongoing pandemic of coronavirus disease (Covid... More

Bolsonaro and the Unmaking of Brazil

Bolsonaro and the Unmaking of Brazil

Recently Brazil became an example of the destructive forces of populist extreme-right-wing governments. Indigenous and traditional populations, the environment,... More