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.

Demonetization: Critical Responses to India’s Cash(/less) Experiment

Demonetization: Critical Responses to India’s Cash(/less) Experiment

On November 8, 2016, Prime Minister Narendra Modi demonetized 86 percent of the cash circulating in India. While citizens were allowed to deposit and exchange n... More

Cuba as Dreamworld and Catastrophe

Cuba as Dreamworld and Catastrophe

This Hot Spots series attempts to interrogate how Cuba is interpellated by diverse audiences to think with and about the complexities and paradoxes of everyday,... More

The Rise of Trumpism

The Rise of Trumpism

The rise of Donald Trump caught many off-guard. What happened? And what comes next? At least one thing is clear: stark divides are being exposed in social order... More

Standing Rock, #NoDAPL, and Mni Wiconi

Standing Rock, #NoDAPL, and Mni Wiconi

Thousands of Water Protectors from more than three hundred Native nations, as well as allied supporters from a range of social movements, gathered at the Standi... More

Crisis of Liberalism

Crisis of Liberalism

Is liberalism in crisis? The surge of populist politics—challenging both representation and reason—around the world demands that we pose the question. 2016 has ... More

Arctic Abstractive Industry

Arctic Abstractive Industry

The Arctic is a region that is being dramatically altered through climate change, even as extractive industries and the nations that rely on them frame the Arct... More

Refugees and the Crisis of Europe

Refugees and the Crisis of Europe

Since the beginning of 2015, an unprecedented number of people from Middle Eastern and African countries—many of them fleeing war, persecution, and unrelenting ... More

Greece is Burning

Greece is Burning

At last judged adequately modern, Greece won the privilege of hosting the summer Olympic Games in 2004. Many analysts have pointed to the national deficit that ... More

The Pilbara Crisis: Resource Frontiers in Western Australia

The Pilbara Crisis: Resource Frontiers in Western Australia

The remote and fragile Pilbara region of Western Australia contains some of Australia’s greatest mineral wealth, as well as some of its richest, most globally s... More

Aftershocked: Reflections on the 2015 Earthquakes in Nepal

Aftershocked: Reflections on the 2015 Earthquakes in Nepal

Beginning at 11:56 a.m. local time on April 25, 2015 and continuing for over two months, a series of large earthquakes and significant aftershocks, numbering mo... More