These Fieldsights sections feature series of ten or more short-form essays, which bring together scholars across institutions and career stages to weigh in on a shared topic. These pieces are reviewed by the editors of Cultural Anthropology.
Speaking Volumes
Having engaged with the recent volumetric turn in architecture and political geography, anthropologists are increasingly concerned with realms such as air, oc... More
Repetition and Extraordinary Living in the Gaza Camp
On a winding two-lane road, just a few kilometers southwest of the ancient city of Jarash, a small refugee camp punctuates the Jordanian landscape. Established ... More
Lessons for Liberalism from the “Illiberal East”
The cumulative effects of Brexit, the resurgence of populist politics in Europe, and the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States have given r... More
Keywords for Ethnography and Design
This series of short essays explores issues facing ethnographers working on or in collaboration with design as a field. It begins from the proposition that the ... More
Im/migration in the Trump Era
One year into the Trump presidency, when our core values of multiculturalism, cross-cultural understanding, international diversity, and racial inclusion are un... More
Activist Objects: The Materiality and Meaning of Human Remains in Postconflict Peru
In this essay, I explore an event that inspired my interest in the performative aspects of making political claims. The images included here were made at the Ap... More
Our Lives with Electric Things
Our lives with electric things are positively charged with meaning. Our bodies pulse with electrical activity. The electric appliances, devices, and technologie... More
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
Collaborative Analytics
This Theorizing the Contemporary series on collaborative analytics emerged from a workshop held at the Center for Ethnography at the University of California, I... More
Evil Infrastructures
Can an infrastructure be evil? The short pieces in this Theorizing the Contemporary series, which were originally commissioned for the 2016 Society for Social S... More