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.
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
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 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
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
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
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
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
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 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
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