Theorizing the Contemporary

Created in 2012, Theorizing the Contemporary seeks to extend the horizon of social analysis in new directions, including challenges to what constitutes "theory" in the first place. Theorizing the Contemporary series are reviewed by the editors of Cultural Anthropology; series editors must be current members of the SCA.

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The Naturalization of Work

The Naturalization of Work

The naturalization of work usually refers to social processes that make a life underpinned by labor seem unquestionable, inevitable, and even desirable. This ki... More

Speaking Volumes

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

Keywords for Ethnography and Design

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

Our Lives with Electric Things

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

Collaborative Analytics

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

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

Digital Ontology

Digital Ontology

It might be argued that anthropology has come late to the question of whether there is an ontology to the digital. Although scholars in software and media studi... More

Lexicon for an Anthropocene Yet Unseen

Lexicon for an Anthropocene Yet Unseen

The idea of an Anthropocene has spread with astonishing speed, dislodging familiar terms like nature and environment from their customary preeminence as signs o... More

The Infrastructure Toolbox

The Infrastructure Toolbox

Why an infrastructure toolbox? Infrastructure has long been a central conceptual tool—a productive metaphor—for critical theory and the analysis of social life ... More

Queer Futures

Queer Futures

This series brings together a cohort of anthropologists to reflect on queer anthropology as a historically situated intellectual formation and research communit... More