Browse Entries

Economics, Politics Commodity and supply chains The global circulation of goods connects economic processes worldwide—from extraction and production to distribution, consumption, and waste disposal. The resultant web of economic... December 2024 by Dagna Rams	Economics, Politics Energy Energy is central to everyday life and industrial production, and is a major concern and focus of public policy. Its production from different sources, its use, and... November 2024 by Katja Müller	Economics, Politics Work/labour Most of our lives are spent working, as we frequently engage in purposeful activity to build and maintain our physical and social worlds. The anthropology of work and labour provides... July 2024 by Jasmine Folz, Rachel Smith
Economics, Politics Debt Debt is meant to be about repaying what you owe, but it often accompanies inequality, oppression, and unrest. Responding to this paradox, this entry explores a variety of debt... March 2024 by Ryan Davey	Economics, Politics Resilience 'Resilience’ is becoming a new policy buzzword. The term describes the ability to recover from expected and unexpected situations, stresses, or threats in order to sustain, thrive,... March 2023 by Kathrin Eitel	Economics, Politics Cash transfers Cash transfers—direct regular and non-contributory payments to eligible individuals—are one of the most discussed, celebrated, and contested social assistance innovations of the... September 2022 by Martin Fotta, Mario Schmidt
Economics, Politics Egalitarianism Anthropology makes a unique contribution to the study of egalitarianism. While ‘egalitarianism’ has long been the purview of moral philosophy, anthropology is unique in that it is the... April 2022 by Megan Laws	Economics, Theory Social reproduction Social reproduction is a lens through which to analyse the persistence of society over time, even as its human and material components keep changing. Its main value is in identifying... September 2021 by Hadas Weiss	Economics, Politics Postsocialism The collapse of the socialist societies in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union drastically changed the lives of millions of people and offered a new and exciting field of research... September 2021 by Dominic Martin
Economics, Politics Sharing Sharing is a particularly versatile and widespread human practice that features in all domains of life, including religion and politics, family life, and economics. It has a long... April 2021 by Thomas Widlok	Economics, Politics Climate change Climate change, largely a product of human activities, is arguably the most comprehensive and dramatic challenge facing humanity. In the first decades of this century, its... April 2021 by Thomas Hylland Eriksen	Economics, Health Depression Depression, which psychiatrists regard as a most common mental illness, has been examined by anthropologists especially closely since the 1980s. While most medical experts consider... March 2021 by Junko Kitanaka, Stefan Ecks
Economics, Politics Dependence Dependence is often considered as a primarily negative state of being. It has gone from being described as a threat to individual self-reliance in early modern political theory in... February 2021 by Keir Martin	Economics, Politics Tax Paying tax or avoiding tax is part of everyday life across the globe. But what kinds of payments are taxes, and how do fiscal systems shape society? Taxes are often conceived of as a... December 2020 by Miranda Sheild Johansson	Economics, Politics Neoliberalism ‘Neoliberalism’ is a widely used term that travelled from economic philosophy into policymaking, and from policymaking into critical social scientific discourse in the late twentieth... October 2020 by Natalie Morningstar
Economics, Politics Cooperatives Cooperatives are a main means of organization for economic activity, generally operating on principles of equal membership and members’ democratic control of their means of... August 2020 by Theodoros Rakopoulos	Economics, Theory Gifts As one of the oldest forms of social actions that bind people together and as an arresting example of the universality and diversity of humanity, gift exchange has long been a focus... July 2020 by Yunxiang Yan	Economics, Politics Hunting and gathering Hunting and gathering constitute the oldest human mode of making a living, and the only one for which there is an uninterrupted record from human origins to the present.... May 2020 by Thomas Widlok
Economics, Health Professionals Professions are institutionalised bodies of specialised knowledge and practice around which divisions of labour within contemporary societies are organised. As well as performing a... April 2020 by Elizabeth Hull	Economics, Politics Money Money is a formidable subject — an intimate object in our everyday lives, a claim over resources, and a topic of academic inquiry. Textbooks define money by its various functions, e.... March 2020 by Allison Truitt	Economics, Politics Farming Farming has become increasingly visible in recent years, following a growing public interest in how food is produced. Anthropologists have been studying farming since the founding of... January 2020 by Andrew Ofstehage
Economics, Politics Water Because water permeates every aspect of human existence, ethnographic accounts describe many forms of engagement with it: for example, its centrality to modes of production; its... December 2019 by Veronica Strang	Economics, Kinship House and home If asked to imagine home, most of us will come to think of a particular house or building. And, for many of us, the quintessential image of home remains the place we grew up in. This... December 2019 by Farhan Samanani, Johannes Lenhard	Economics, Politics Mining Mining has occurred for thousands of years, and social anthropologists have studied it for almost a century. This entry explains anthropology's principle findings about mining,... October 2019 by Alex Golub
Economics, Politics Waste From plastics in the oceans, to the export of toxic materials, waste is an issue that increasingly attracts public attention as well as demands for political and environmental action... August 2019 by Patrick O'Hare	Economics, Theory Games Though there is no universally accepted definition for what constitutes a ‘game’, games are typically defined as goal-oriented, rules-based activities closely associated with the... May 2019 by Max Watson	Economics, Theory Digital anthropology ‘The digital’ is defined here as new technologies that are ultimately reducible to binary code. These have made many cultural artefacts easier and quicker to both reproduce and to... August 2018 by Daniel Miller
Economics, Religion Charité Cet article aborde la charité comme un terme «étique» qui facilite la comparaison entre des traditions différentes. Les bases théoriques en ont été posées par deux grands... August 2018 by Jonathan Benthall	Economics, Kinship Adoption What is adoption? To answer this question is to jump directly into one of the key controversies of anthropology: anthropologists, associated for over a century with the close study... June 2018 by Jessaca Leinaweaver	Economics, Politics Precarity Precarity emerged as a central concern in scholarly research and writing in the twenty-first century, partly in response to political mobilizations against unemployment and social... March 2018 by Sharryn Kasmir
Economics, Religion Charity This entry considers charity as an ‘etic’ term that facilitates comparison between different traditions. Theoretical foundations were laid by two great anthropologists at the... December 2017 by Jonathan Benthall	Economics, Theory Tourism Tourism is a new phenomenon in world history, but today more people travel long distances for this purpose than for any other. This entry traces some main contributions... November 2017 by Rupert Stasch	Economics, Politics Bureaucracy Bureaucracy quite literally translates into rule by public office (‘bureau’). The anthropology of bureaucracy can be seen as falling under two broad approaches. Firstly, there is an... November 2017 by Nayanika Mathur
Economics, Politics Feasting Feasts are special meals (food out of the ordinary in kind or quantity) shared among an enlarged circle of people. They are occasions for many kinds of activities, not only eating... October 2016 by Chloe Nahum-Claudel	Economics, Politics Resistance With images of protest and dissent widespread and frequently circulated in news broadcasts and social media posts, resistance to prevailing power structures seems to be an expected... October 2016 by Fiona Wright	Economics, Politics Anthropology museums and museum anthropology This entry provides an overview of the history, politics and changing roles of anthropology museums. It explores the developing field of museum anthropology, which encompasses the... October 2016 by Anita Herle
Economics, Theory Gambling Gambling occurs when a person commits one or more valuable items (a ‘stake’) to an event or series of events packaged together, and where the result determines a loss or win at a... September 2016 by Anthony Pickles	Economics, Politics Colonialism / postcolonialism The giant composite field of colonialism and postcolonialism studies has had a transforming effect on modern anthropology. Anthropologists have been innovative users of its... September 2016 by Susan Bayly

Top

top