Social and cultural anthropology Books

Book SynopsisSara Ann Wylie traces the history of fracking in the United States and how scientists, nonprofits, landowners, and everyday people are coming together to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable through the creation of digital platforms and databases that document fracking's devastating environmental and human health impacts.Trade Review"Wylie makes an exciting and timely scholarly contribution that is relevant well beyond the scope of those concerned with the anthropology of energy. This book is useful to social scientists to inform research and teaching on topics spanning science and technology studies, energy policy, sustainability,environmental health, digital humanities, and applied and design anthropology. The relevance of this work also extends beyond academia, and would be of great value not only to gas patch communities that are still struggling to demonstrate the links between chemical exposure and illness, but to community leaders and activists that are engaged in a growing array of citizen science initiatives." -- Amanda Poole * Conservation and Society *"Fractivism is an incredibly well-sourced book that presents and represents a kind of historical account of the newer applications of fracking technology (fracking reservoirs isn’t actually new) and various approaches scientists and communities are using to hold exploration companies accountable for the environmental problems resulting from fracking operations. . . . Well worth reading. Highly recommended. All readers." -- M. S. Field * Choice *"Written with a strong sense of conviction and urgency. . . . An important and timely book that offers essential reading for students, researchers, and activists interested in civic science and the David-and-Goliath struggle of the popular epidemiology movement to help grassroots groups document the toxic burden posed by petrochemical and fossil fuel facilities." -- Anthony E. Ladd * Mobilization *"It is a credit to the book that every chapter has its share of galling information about corporate malfeasance. . . . As forests burn and famine grows, the need for Wylie’s radical science and activism is ever more necessary." -- Miles Taylor * Synoptique *"Fracktivism is a meticulously researched and supported text. . . . For academics, lawmakers, and activists, Fracktivism may give either the insight, data, or motivation for a new platform in piercing the 'regimes of imperceptibility.'" -- Victor Hall * Natural Resources Journal *"Fractivism truly is an interdisciplinary work, combining insights and methodologies from anthropology, sociology, science and technology studies, environmental science, and physiology. Wylie does a good job of integrating these perspectives to produce a compelling and detailed guide for collaborative environmental justice work." -- Kristen M. Schorpp * Nature and Culture *"Positioning matters of science and technology at the heart of environmental justice and the study of extractive industries, Wylie contributes to important debates in anthropology, applied social sciences and STS which concern the methodological and conceptual ability of these disciplines to challenge dominant paradigms." -- Anna Szolucha * Cambridge Journal of Anthropology *"Fractivism is especially useful for the classroom and for interdisciplinary researchers and students alike to understand how 'STS in practice' can be a model for material projects that unite those who want to try and find solutions with others—not in isolation. This book is a tool for those looking to utilize research, data, or analytical methods for social and environmental justice movements broadly." -- Leslie Quintanilla * Catalyst *Table of ContentsPreface ix Acknowledgments xiii Introduction. An STS Analysis of Natural Gas Development in the United States 1 1. Securing the Natural Gas Boom: Oilfield Service Companies and Hydraulic Fracturing's Regulatory Exemptions 19 2. Methods for Following Chemicals: Seeing a Disruptive System and Forming a Disruptive Science 41 3. HEIRship: TEDX and Collective Inheritance 64 4. Stimulating Debate: Fracking, HEIRship, and TEDX's Generative Database 86 5. Industrial Relations and an Introduction to STS in Practice 115 6. ExtrAct: A Case Study in Methods for STS in Practice 137 7. Landman Report Card: Developing Web Tools for Socially Contentious Issues 165 8. From LRC to WellWatch: Designing Infrastructure for Participatory and Recursive Publics 191 9. WellWatch: Reflections on Designing Digital Media for Multisited Para-ethnography of Industrial Systems 219 10. The Fossil-Fuel Connection (with coauthor Len Albright) 247 Conclusion. Corporate Bodies and Chemical Bonds: A Call for Industrial Embodiment 279 Notes 305 References 333 Index 383

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Book SynopsisTracing the college experiences of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans, Ellen Moore challenges the popular narratives that explain student veterans' academic difficulties while showing how these narratives and institutional support for the military lead to suppression of campus debate about the wars, discourage anti-war activism, and encourage a growing militarization.Trade Review"Through extensive work with hundreds of veterans and a detailed investigation into veterans in college, Ellen Moore has powerfully illuminated and analyzed the ways the military has strategically positioned itself in US society. She has done something unique and powerful in the scholarship of war and peace—a work that should be broadly disseminated and debated." -- Rick Ayers * Huffington Post *“Grateful Nation raises important insights as to what the veterans’ presence on campus might mean. And, much like the paratrooper’s rucksack, there is a lot in Grateful Nation to unpack.” -- Robert G. Young * Military Review *"An insightful new book. Grateful Nation will contribute to both future research and practice among those who study and work on questions related to veterans and to higher education." -- Alair MacLean * Social Forces *"Due to its wide-ranging theoretical grounding and implications, Grateful Nation is a strong contribution for those interested in a variety of topics including education, militarism, and veteran experiences. This is an excellent book for those who work with student veterans and want to engage in depth with the complexity of this student population." -- Michelle Sandhoff * American Journal of Sociology *Table of ContentsPreface ix Acknowledgments xi Introduction 1 1. Basic Training: Making the Soldier, Militarizing the Civilian 25 2. What They Bring with Them: Effects of Military Training on Student Veterans 43 3. Campus Veteran Support Initiatives 77 4. Veteran Self-Help: Embracing, Re-creating, and Contesting Gendered Military Relations 97 5. Spectral Wars and the Myth of the Antimilitary Campus 127 6. "Thank You for Your Service": Gratitude and Its Discontents 165 Conclusion 189 Notes 201 Bibliography 237 Index 253

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Book SynopsisThe contributors to Unfinished explore the ethnographic essay's expressive potentials by pursuing an anthropology of becoming, which attends to the contingency of lived experience and provides new means to represent what life means and how it can be represented.Trade Review"Unfinished: The Anthropology of Becoming promises to contribute to our understanding of this current moment of political and epistemological uncertainties, and will be of great interest to scholars, researchers, and writers from across the social and natural sciences and the humanities." -- Onur Günay and Heath Pearson * Somatosphere *"As complex and ambitious as it is masterfully conceived. . . . A sign of renaissance in anthropology." -- Roberto Costa * The Australian Journal of Anthropology *"Bringing the theme of becoming to the center of the anthropological debate is particularly timely in a context in which institutions, as well as the public, are discussing and interpreting society in ways that rely heavily on deterministic forms of schematism and simplification. . . . Unfinished could be an intriguing choice for professionals looking for a source of inspiration for new analytical approaches to study the dynamism of social phenomena." -- Michele Fontefrancesco * Anthropology in Action *"Although theoretically complex, the contributors never lose sight of the individuals at the heart of ethnography. . . . What stands out is its intricate and intimate representation of human experience, which imbues it with authority and stays with the reader for a long time." -- Heather Montgomery * Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute *Table of ContentsForeword. Unfinished / João Biehl and Peter Locke ix Introduction. Ethnographic Sensorium / João Biehl and Peter Locke 1 1. The Anthropology of Becoming / João Biehl and Peter Locke 41 2. Becoming Aggrieved / Laurence Ralph 93 3. Heaven / Angela Garcia 111 4. Rebellious Matter / Bridget Purcell 133 5. Witness / Naisargi N. Dave 151 6. I Was Cannibalized by an Artist / Lilia M. Schwarcz 173 7. On Negative Becoming / Lucas Bessire 197 8. Time Machines / Elizabeth A. Davis 217 9. Horizoning / Adriana Petryna 243 10. Meantime / Peter Locke 269 11. Hereafter / João Biehl 278 Afterword. Zen Exercises: Anthropological Discipline and Ethics / Michael M. J. Fischer 293 Acknowledgments 317 Bibliography 319 Contributors 353 List of Illustrations 357 Index 359

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Book SynopsisThe contributors to Unfinished explore the ethnographic essay's expressive potentials by pursuing an anthropology of becoming, which attends to the contingency of lived experience and provides new means to represent what life means and how it can be represented.Trade Review"Unfinished: The Anthropology of Becoming promises to contribute to our understanding of this current moment of political and epistemological uncertainties, and will be of great interest to scholars, researchers, and writers from across the social and natural sciences and the humanities." -- Onur Günay and Heath Pearson * Somatosphere *"As complex and ambitious as it is masterfully conceived. . . . A sign of renaissance in anthropology." -- Roberto Costa * The Australian Journal of Anthropology *"Bringing the theme of becoming to the center of the anthropological debate is particularly timely in a context in which institutions, as well as the public, are discussing and interpreting society in ways that rely heavily on deterministic forms of schematism and simplification. . . . Unfinished could be an intriguing choice for professionals looking for a source of inspiration for new analytical approaches to study the dynamism of social phenomena." -- Michele Fontefrancesco * Anthropology in Action *"Although theoretically complex, the contributors never lose sight of the individuals at the heart of ethnography. . . . What stands out is its intricate and intimate representation of human experience, which imbues it with authority and stays with the reader for a long time." -- Heather Montgomery * Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute *Table of ContentsForeword. Unfinished / João Biehl and Peter Locke ix Introduction. Ethnographic Sensorium / João Biehl and Peter Locke 1 1. The Anthropology of Becoming / João Biehl and Peter Locke 41 2. Becoming Aggrieved / Laurence Ralph 93 3. Heaven / Angela Garcia 111 4. Rebellious Matter / Bridget Purcell 133 5. Witness / Naisargi N. Dave 151 6. I Was Cannibalized by an Artist / Lilia M. Schwarcz 173 7. On Negative Becoming / Lucas Bessire 197 8. Time Machines / Elizabeth A. Davis 217 9. Horizoning / Adriana Petryna 243 10. Meantime / Peter Locke 269 11. Hereafter / João Biehl 278 Afterword. Zen Exercises: Anthropological Discipline and Ethics / Michael M. J. Fischer 293 Acknowledgments 317 Bibliography 319 Contributors 353 List of Illustrations 357 Index 359

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Book SynopsisErin Beck examines microfinance NGOs working with poor, rural women in Guatemala to show how these women creatively and strategically use the NGOs to their own benefit in ways that do not necessarily match the goals of the NGOs, demonstrating that development projects are often transformed and persist in unexpected ways.Trade Review"Erin Beck has made a lasting contribution to the field of development studies in theorising development as a social interaction while also raising important issues for policy and practice. How Development Projects Persist is a call to contemplate, assess and study development not simply according to the goals of policymakers and organisations, but according to the larger vision and life goals of the people that interventions hope to serve." -- Bronwen Gillespie * Anthropology in Action *"The strength of Why Development Projects Persist is the quality of Beck’s data. . . . Beck writes her ethnographic data with completeness and clarity, which allows the reader to understand the intentions of these organizations, the worldviews of participants, and the ways these clashed as the NGOs’ visions of development were put into practice." -- Laura J. Heideman * American Journal of Sociology *"The text’s strength lies in its conceptual breadth and accessibility. . . . An easy, yet enlightening read. . . . Beck effectively shows rather than just tells what development encounters look like and how they are interpreted by the actors involved." -- Monica DeHart * Anthropological Quarterly *“This book. . . is useful to those interested in international studies, development studies, as well as development practitioners. . . . Further, Beck’s detailed analysis is well-written and jargon-free, and presents us with a balanced and longitudinal view of NGO development projects in Guatemala.” -- Michelle Moran-Taylor * Journal of Latin American Geography *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments vii 1. Social Engineering from Above and Below 1 2. Repackaging Development in Guatemala 29 3. Namaste's Bootstrap Model 64 4. Women and Workers Responding to Bootstrap Development 90 5. The Fraternity's Holistic Model 134 6. The Uneven Practices and Experiences of Holistic Development 162 7. The Implications of Socially Constructed Development 208 Appendix. Research Methods and Ethical Dilemmas 225 Notes 233 References 239 Index 259

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Book SynopsisThe contributors to If Truth Be Told explore the difficulties, dangers, and stakes of having ethnographic research made available, debated, and appropriated by the public.Trade Review"[A] must-read for every student of anthropology, policy maker and administrator trying to understand the complexities of the social world we inhabit." -- Sarbani Sharma * Anthropology Book Forum *"A stimulating collection of articles that illustrates, examines, and generates important questions about the project of public ethnography, and about public social science more generally. It deserves to be widely read." -- Martyn Hammersley * Canadian Journal of Sociology *"If Truth Be Told offers thoughtful, reflexive accounts of the public afterlife of ethnography that will surely spark a range of productive exchanges among scholars invested in the public reach of social science research." -- Colin Hastings, Leigha Comer, & Eric Mykhalovskiy * Forum: Qualitative Social Research *"In presenting some of the possibilities and challenges that 'going public' entails, this volume is essential reading for researchers embarking on public ethnography, and for departments and funders who encourage engagement beyond academia. If Truth Be Told is equally important for those who do not see their work as being particularly public-facing; any published work can take on a public afterlife beyond the author’s intentions." -- Laura Haapio-Kirk * Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute *"In this important new collection,Didier Fassin and his colleagues stake a powerful and innovative claim on the diverse landscape of anthropology’s history of public engagement." -- Alyshia Galvez * American Ethnologist *"[This] book is a wonderful contribution that further helps to reflect upon the role of ethnography, and the constant challenges it must face when trying to go beyond academia and engage with wider audiences." -- Sebastian Rojas Navarro * Sociological Research Online *Table of ContentsIntroduction: When Ethnography Goes Public / Didier Fassin 1 Part I. Strategies 1. Gopher, Translator, and Trickster: The Ethnographer and the Media / Gabriella Coleman 19 2. What Is a Public Intervention? Speaking Truth to the Oppressed / Ghassan Hage 47 3. Before the Commission: Ethnography as Pubic Testimony / Kelly Gillespie 69 4. Addressing Policy-Oriented Audiences: Relevance and Persuasiveness / Manuela Ivone Cunha 96 Part II. Engagements 5. Serendipitous Involvement: Making Peace in the Geto / Federico Neiburg 119 6. Tactical versus Critical: Indigenizing Public Ethnography / Lucas Bessire 138 7. Experto Crede? A Legal and Political Conundrum / Jonathan Benthall 160 8. Policy Ethnography as a Combat Sport: Analyzing the Welfare State against the Grain / Vincent Dubois 184 Part III. Tensions 9. Academic Freedom at Risk: The Occasional Worldliness of Scholarly Texts / Nadia Abu El-Haj 205 10. Perils and Prospects of Going Public: Between Academia and Real Life / Unni Wikan 228 11. Ethnography Prosecuted: Facing the Fabulation of Power / João Biehl 261 12. How Publics Shape Ethnographers: Translating across Divided Audiences / Sherine Hamdy 287 Epilogue: The Public Afterlife of Ethnography / Didier Fassin 311 Contributors 345 Index 349

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Book SynopsisThe eminent anthropologists Richard and Sally Price look back at their first years living among the Saamaka maroons in Suriname in the late 1960s, retelling the evolution of their personal lives and careers, relationships with the Saamaka, and the field of anthropology.Trade Review"Beautifully written, this book presents a satisfying commentary on the anthropological enterprise, to be enjoyed by a wide variety of readers. Essential. All public and academic levels/libraries." -- P. Passariello * Choice *"A complex ethnographic narrative . . . a dynamic story with a cast of Saamaka characters. . . . Though the book is published over fifty years after the initial research, it still shows a candor and eye for painstaking detail of moment to moment happenings in daily life." -- Cheryl White * Anthropos *"This inspiring book combines ethnography with a brilliantly written autobiographical account. . . . The way in which Richard Price and Sally Price position themselves as the main protagonists of their interlocutions with Saamaka villagers, is precisely what makes the book so rich." -- Olivia M. Gomes da Cunha * New West Indian Guide *"A retrospective on a life’s work, Saamaka Dreaming stands alone as an introduction to understanding social memory in the black diaspora via ethnographic practice. But it also shows us how that memory can shape political engagement in the present premised on what we might call the hopes—or dreams—of a better future that anthropologists can also help create." -- Sarah E. Vaughn * American Ethnologist *"This is an inspiring narrative on Saamaka Maroons lifestyle changes through half a century, on changes from an anthropological perspective on these people, as well as the development of anthropology as a science and the impact that a researcher can make. It is not only a great source to learn about Saamaka culture but also a great narrative to read—it is literary anthropology at its best." -- Asnate Morozova * Anthropological Notebooks *Table of ContentsPreface ix 1. Testing the Waters 1 2. On Trial 13 3. A Feast for the Ancestors 28 4. Going "Outside" 34 5. On Nai's Doorstep 40 6. Under Kala's House 51 7. The Sika 58 8. What Month It It? 62 9. The Captain's "Granddaughter" 71 10. Upriver 74 11. At the Ancestor Shrine 86 12. The Cock's Balls 100 13. Nai's Rivergod 103 14. Agbago's Seagod 108 15. Kala's Snakegod 114 16. A Touch of Madness 123 17. Playing for the Gods 132 18. A Tree Falls 139 19. Sickness 144 20. Death of a Witch 155 21. Chasing Ghosts 173 22. Death of a Child 179 23. Returns 190 24. Foto 202 25. Looking at Paper 205 26. The End of an Era 215 Notes 231 Bibliography 243 Index 247

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Book SynopsisJennifer Terry traces how biomedical logics entangle Americans in a perpetual state of war, in which new forms of wounding necessitate the continual development of treatment and prosthetic technologies while the military justifies violence and military occupation as necessary conditions for advancing medical knowledge.Trade Review“Attachments to War provides a set of tools that will be valuable to students and established scholars alike for prizing apart and connecting together these attachments in new and vitally necessary ways.” -- Kenneth MacLeish * Medical Anthropology Quarterly *"Terry’s work is eye-opening to a powerful new perspective on the American way of war. Her scholarship is well researched and carefully supported. . . . A fascinating piece of scholarship concerning a tragically understudied subject." -- James Sandy * H-Diplo, H-Net Reviews *"Terry’s work serves as a critical reminder that biomedicine, 'as both an epistemological formation and an industry,' sutures war to care, laboring to convince the public that the knowledge produced through warfare justifies its violence. The crucial work of dismantling US empire, Terry reminds her reader, is to reject that 'labyrinth of excuses.'" -- Jennifer Kelly * Radical History Review *Table of ContentsAbbreviations ix Acknowledgments xi Introduction 1 1. The Biomedicine-War Nexus 27 2. Promises of Polytrauma: On Regenerative Medicine 53 3. We Can Enhance You: On Bionic Prosthetics 89 4. Pathogenic Threats: On Pharmaceutical War Profiteering 140 Epilogue 180 Notes 189 Bibliography 217 Index 239

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Book SynopsisJennifer Terry traces how biomedical logics entangle Americans in a perpetual state of war, in which new forms of wounding necessitate the continual development of treatment and prosthetic technologies while the military justifies violence and military occupation as necessary conditions for advancing medical knowledge.Trade Review“Attachments to War provides a set of tools that will be valuable to students and established scholars alike for prizing apart and connecting together these attachments in new and vitally necessary ways.” -- Kenneth MacLeish * Medical Anthropology Quarterly *"Terry’s work is eye-opening to a powerful new perspective on the American way of war. Her scholarship is well researched and carefully supported. . . . A fascinating piece of scholarship concerning a tragically understudied subject." -- James Sandy * H-Diplo, H-Net Reviews *"Terry’s work serves as a critical reminder that biomedicine, 'as both an epistemological formation and an industry,' sutures war to care, laboring to convince the public that the knowledge produced through warfare justifies its violence. The crucial work of dismantling US empire, Terry reminds her reader, is to reject that 'labyrinth of excuses.'" -- Jennifer Kelly * Radical History Review *Table of ContentsAbbreviations ix Acknowledgments xi Introduction 1 1. The Biomedicine-War Nexus 27 2. Promises of Polytrauma: On Regenerative Medicine 53 3. We Can Enhance You: On Bionic Prosthetics 89 4. Pathogenic Threats: On Pharmaceutical War Profiteering 140 Epilogue 180 Notes 189 Bibliography 217 Index 239

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Book SynopsisEmily Callaci maps a new terrain of political and cultural production in mid-twentieth-century Tanzanian cities. While the postcolonial Tanzanian ruling party adopted a policy of rural socialism—Ujamaa—an influx of youth migrants to the city of Dar es Salaam generated innovative forms of urbanism through the production and circulation of street archives.Trade Review"A brilliant book. . . . Callaci’s original approach enables readers to better understand the making of urban life beyond colonial and postcolonial cities. . . . She does this in such a way that the reader is engrossed by novelty and guided by a sense of theoretical clarity." -- Patrick Hege * H-Soz-Kult, H-Net Reviews *"Explores a variety of texts—didactic booklets aimed at young women, pulp fiction novellas, and song lyrics . . . A notable strength of the book is its treatment of these sources not only as reflective and productive of a particular moral imagination but also as inextricably entangled in the making of material gender positionalities through the material and reputational economies involved in the creation of these texts. . . . A valuable contribution to the historiography of this well-studied city [Dar es Salaam] and its inhabitants." -- Leander Schneider * American Historical Review *"Callaci has provided an excellent exploration of a crucial aspect of Tanzanian history and urban studies, and in the process, she creates a model for scholars seeking a broad understanding of African city dwellers and communities. This volume will be valuable reading for upper division students as well as graduate students and scholars in history, African Studies, post-socialist studies, urban studies, qualitative sociology, and anthropology." -- Anne S. Lewinson * International Journal of African Historical Studies *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments vii Introduction 1 1. TANU, African Socialism, and the City Idea 18 2. "All Alone in the Big City": Elite Women, "Working Girls," and Struggles over Domesticity, Reproduction, and Urban Space 59 3. Dar after Dark: Dance, Desire, and Conspicuous Consumption in Dar es Salaam's Nightlife 102 4, Lovers and Fighters: Pulp-Fiction Publishing and the Transformation of Urban Masculinity 141 5. From Socialist to Street-Smart: A Changing Urban Lexicon 180 Conclusion 207 Notes 215 Bibliography 253 Index 277

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Book SynopsisExploring the racial and environmental politics behind South Africa’s rooibos tea industry to examine heritage-based claims to the indigenous plant by two groups of contested indigeneity: white Afrikaners and “coloured” South Africans.Trade Review"Ives provides an accessible and interesting perspective on the complex, ongoing issue of race relations within South Africa. Recommended." -- C. W. Herrick * Choice *“Steeped in Heritage is an excellent and highly recommendable account. Offers wonderful scope for comparison.” -- Annika Teppo * Anthropological Forum *“Steeped in Heritage is likely to be of interest to any scholar interested in anthro-ecological interactions, racial politics, questions of self-hood and belonging, or simply interested in finding meaning in the tealeaves left at the bottom of their cup.” -- Sarah Bradley * Journal of Ecological Anthropology *“A nuanced and theoretically engaged analysis. Steeped in Heritage offers a novel contribution to a long tradition of deeply ethnographic political ecology scholarship. This book will interest scholars working on a vast range of issues including indigeneity, environmental change, climate change, agricultural labor, identity politics, multispecies relationships, place-based products, and African studies.” -- Emma McDonell * Journal of Political Ecology *"Compelling and prescient . . . Steeped in Heritage is a fascinating exploration of the dynamics surrounding identity and its ties to things and places in a racist, capitalist context." -- Aran Mackinnon * African Quarterly *"Steeped in Heritage is thorough and well-thought-out . . . Excellent and highly recommendable." -- Annika Teppo * Anthropological Forum *"Steeped in Heritage is a fascinating and well-written account that refreshingly avoids the dominant paradigms associated with climate change. . . . Instead, it gives us a much-needed analysis of ecological change as a thoroughly social process, inseparable from local politics, which are dominated by structures of race and class. It is essential reading for anyone interested in the contemporary politics of southern Africa or the future of food in a time of ecological crisis." -- Elizabeth Hull * American Anthropologist *"A nuanced, elegantly written study of what it means to own and profit off a crop and the land that sustains it. Ives writes in a lyrical fashion, using the metaphors of cultivation, steeping and sipping to create an interpretive framework. . . . In this vital study of plants and people, commodities and labourers, Ives centres her discussion on the supply side to show where the tea we drink is made." -- Abena Dove Osseo-Asare * Journal of Modern African Studies *“Steeped in Heritage provides a fresh perspective on the post-apartheid situation of race relations and identity in South Africa while offering insight into the precarious rooibos economy of the Western Cape region. This book is multidisciplinary and will especially benefit those interested in South African studies, food economies, and cultural and regional identities that derive from commodity production.” -- Gina Covert Benavidez * Journal of Global South Studies *Table of ContentsPreface ix Acknowledgments xiii Introduction. The "Rooibos Revolution" 1 1. Cultivating Indigeneity 29 2. Farming the Bush 65 3. Endemic Plants and Invasive People 96 4. Rumor, Conspiracy, and the Politics of Narration 134 5. Precarious Landscapes 173 Conclusion. "Although There Is No Place Called Rooibos" 210 Notes 217 References 229 Index 245

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Book SynopsisIn Street Archives and City Life Emily Callaci maps a new terrain of political and cultural production in mid- to late twentieth-century Tanzanian urban landscapes. While the postcolonial Tanzanian ruling party (TANU) adopted a policy of rural socialism known as Ujamaa between 1967 and 1985, an influx of youth migrants to the city of Dar es Salaam generated innovative forms of urbanism through the production and circulation of what Callaci calls street archives. These urban intellectuals neither supported nor contested the ruling party''s anti-city philosophy; rather, they navigated the complexities of inhabiting unplanned African cities during economic crisis and social transformation through various forms of popular texts that included women''s Christian advice literature, newspaper columns, self-published pulp fiction novellas, and song lyrics. Through these textual networks, Callaci shows how youth migrants and urban intellectuals in Dar es Salaam fashioned a collectiveTrade Review"A brilliant book. . . . Callaci’s original approach enables readers to better understand the making of urban life beyond colonial and postcolonial cities. . . . She does this in such a way that the reader is engrossed by novelty and guided by a sense of theoretical clarity." -- Patrick Hege * H-Soz-Kult, H-Net Reviews *"Explores a variety of texts—didactic booklets aimed at young women, pulp fiction novellas, and song lyrics . . . A notable strength of the book is its treatment of these sources not only as reflective and productive of a particular moral imagination but also as inextricably entangled in the making of material gender positionalities through the material and reputational economies involved in the creation of these texts. . . . A valuable contribution to the historiography of this well-studied city [Dar es Salaam] and its inhabitants." -- Leander Schneider * American Historical Review *"Callaci has provided an excellent exploration of a crucial aspect of Tanzanian history and urban studies, and in the process, she creates a model for scholars seeking a broad understanding of African city dwellers and communities. This volume will be valuable reading for upper division students as well as graduate students and scholars in history, African Studies, post-socialist studies, urban studies, qualitative sociology, and anthropology." -- Anne S. Lewinson * International Journal of African Historical Studies *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments vii Introduction 1 1. TANU, African Socialism, and the City Idea 18 2. "All Alone in the Big City": Elite Women, "Working Girls," and Struggles over Domesticity, Reproduction, and Urban Space 59 3. Dar after Dark: Dance, Desire, and Conspicuous Consumption in Dar es Salaam's Nightlife 102 4, Lovers and Fighters: Pulp-Fiction Publishing and the Transformation of Urban Masculinity 141 5. From Socialist to Street-Smart: A Changing Urban Lexicon 180 Conclusion 207 Notes 215 Bibliography 253 Index 277

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Book SynopsisExploring the racial and environmental politics behind South Africa’s rooibos tea industry to examine heritage-based claims to the indigenous plant by two groups of contested indigeneity: white Afrikaners and “coloured” South Africans.Trade Review"Ives provides an accessible and interesting perspective on the complex, ongoing issue of race relations within South Africa. Recommended." -- C. W. Herrick * Choice *“Steeped in Heritage is an excellent and highly recommendable account. Offers wonderful scope for comparison.” -- Annika Teppo * Anthropological Forum *“Steeped in Heritage is likely to be of interest to any scholar interested in anthro-ecological interactions, racial politics, questions of self-hood and belonging, or simply interested in finding meaning in the tealeaves left at the bottom of their cup.” -- Sarah Bradley * Journal of Ecological Anthropology *“A nuanced and theoretically engaged analysis. Steeped in Heritage offers a novel contribution to a long tradition of deeply ethnographic political ecology scholarship. This book will interest scholars working on a vast range of issues including indigeneity, environmental change, climate change, agricultural labor, identity politics, multispecies relationships, place-based products, and African studies.” -- Emma McDonell * Journal of Political Ecology *"Compelling and prescient . . . Steeped in Heritage is a fascinating exploration of the dynamics surrounding identity and its ties to things and places in a racist, capitalist context." -- Aran Mackinnon * African Quarterly *"Steeped in Heritage is thorough and well-thought-out . . . Excellent and highly recommendable." -- Annika Teppo * Anthropological Forum *"Steeped in Heritage is a fascinating and well-written account that refreshingly avoids the dominant paradigms associated with climate change. . . . Instead, it gives us a much-needed analysis of ecological change as a thoroughly social process, inseparable from local politics, which are dominated by structures of race and class. It is essential reading for anyone interested in the contemporary politics of southern Africa or the future of food in a time of ecological crisis." -- Elizabeth Hull * American Anthropologist *"A nuanced, elegantly written study of what it means to own and profit off a crop and the land that sustains it. Ives writes in a lyrical fashion, using the metaphors of cultivation, steeping and sipping to create an interpretive framework. . . . In this vital study of plants and people, commodities and labourers, Ives centres her discussion on the supply side to show where the tea we drink is made." -- Abena Dove Osseo-Asare * Journal of Modern African Studies *“Steeped in Heritage provides a fresh perspective on the post-apartheid situation of race relations and identity in South Africa while offering insight into the precarious rooibos economy of the Western Cape region. This book is multidisciplinary and will especially benefit those interested in South African studies, food economies, and cultural and regional identities that derive from commodity production.” -- Gina Covert Benavidez * Journal of Global South Studies *Table of ContentsPreface ix Acknowledgments xiii Introduction. The "Rooibos Revolution" 1 1. Cultivating Indigeneity 29 2. Farming the Bush 65 3. Endemic Plants and Invasive People 96 4. Rumor, Conspiracy, and the Politics of Narration 134 5. Precarious Landscapes 173 Conclusion. "Although There Is No Place Called Rooibos" 210 Notes 217 References 229 Index 245

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Book SynopsisPaul Rabinow continues his explorations of "a philosophic anthropology of the contemporary" by examining the work of German painter Gerhard Richter. Defining the contemporary as a moving ratio in which the modern becomes historical, Rabinow uses Richter's work to illustrate how meaning is created within the contemporary.Trade Review"Sometimes the keenest observations on an overly familiar phenomena come from outside the family. So it is with Paul Rabinow's lively, risky intervention in the clan of prestigious art theorists and critics who have created the reception of Gerhard Richter, one of the most famous artists in the world today. Rabinow contests the prevailing cliches that underwrite Richter's canonization, employing an anthropological perspective to untangle the artist's experiments with form in the twilit afterlife of modernism." -- W. J. T. Mitchell, author of Image Science: Iconology, Visual Culture, and Media Aesthetics "The virtual meeting of Gerhard Richter and Paul Rabinow opens up utterly new scholarly and discursive vistas into the nature of the contemporary. Offering a highly sophisticated and innovative anthropological framework to discuss the work of a prominent contemporary artist, Rabinow's innovative and exquisite book makes a compelling and necessary attempt to productively tie the arts and art criticism with the human sciences." -- Amir Eshel, author of Futurity: Contemporary Literature and the Quest for the PastTable of ContentsIntroduction. Form and Birkenau 1 1. Object: The Contemporary 15 2. Constellations: Writing and Imaging Strife 33 3. Assembling: Abet and Facilitate 65 4. Composition: Technē and Pathos 95 5. Contemporary Consolations: Unconsoled 125 6. Restive Endings 141 Notes 147 Bibliography 159

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Book SynopsisPaul Rabinow continues his explorations of "a philosophic anthropology of the contemporary" by examining the work of German painter Gerhard Richter. Defining the contemporary as a moving ratio in which the modern becomes historical, Rabinow uses Richter's work to illustrate how meaning is created within the contemporary.Trade Review"Sometimes the keenest observations on an overly familiar phenomena come from outside the family. So it is with Paul Rabinow's lively, risky intervention in the clan of prestigious art theorists and critics who have created the reception of Gerhard Richter, one of the most famous artists in the world today. Rabinow contests the prevailing cliches that underwrite Richter's canonization, employing an anthropological perspective to untangle the artist's experiments with form in the twilit afterlife of modernism." -- W. J. T. Mitchell, author of Image Science: Iconology, Visual Culture, and Media Aesthetics "The virtual meeting of Gerhard Richter and Paul Rabinow opens up utterly new scholarly and discursive vistas into the nature of the contemporary. Offering a highly sophisticated and innovative anthropological framework to discuss the work of a prominent contemporary artist, Rabinow's innovative and exquisite book makes a compelling and necessary attempt to productively tie the arts and art criticism with the human sciences." -- Amir Eshel, author of Futurity: Contemporary Literature and the Quest for the PastTable of ContentsIntroduction. Form and Birkenau 1 1. Object: The Contemporary 15 2. Constellations: Writing and Imaging Strife 33 3. Assembling: Abet and Facilitate 65 4. Composition: Technē and Pathos 95 5. Contemporary Consolations: Unconsoled 125 6. Restive Endings 141 Notes 147 Bibliography 159

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Book SynopsisJuno Salazar Parreñas traces the ways in which colonialism and decolonization shape relations between humans and nonhumans at a Malaysian orangutan rehabilitation center, contending that considering rehabilitation from an orangutan perspective will shift conservation biology from ultimately violent investments in population growth and toward a feminist sense of welfare.Trade Review"This is seriously thought-provoking and challenging material, and it may be essential to understand it if we want to save orangutans from ourselves." -- John R. Platt * The Revelator *"Impactful. . . . Juno S. Parreñas details diverse assumptions and expectations participants bring to this complex network, thereby generating a unique and timely addition to the conservation literature. Highly recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty and professionals." -- L. K. Sheeran * Choice *"Decolonizing Extinction is essential reading for anyone with the ambition to do multispecies ethnography well. It’s also a beautiful and moving book that struggles with the ethical weight of ethnography as a mode of knowledge production." -- Gabriel N. Rosenberg * Radical History Review *"[This book] excels in these tricky in-between places: in meetings between species, between temporalities, between bodies, between genders, between sexes, and across divergent positions within colonial histories and presents. Parreñas tracks meetings across difference with the best kind of ethnographic sensitivity." -- Rosemary Collard * Society & Space *"Decolonizing Extinction offers a compelling example of why feminism is well suited and positioned to take on issues related to animals, as well as how gender relations of power are necessarily embedded in human-animal relations, and in turn broader process of colonization and arrested autonomy." -- Alice Hovorka * Society & Space *"The book brilliantly weaves discussions about broader socio-political transformations and norms alongside very careful and detailed accounts of the everyday practices and interactions between orangutans and people." -- Krithika Srinivasan * Society & Space *"A powerful, thought-provoking, and touching account of the quotidian nature of mass extinction." -- Becky Mansfield * Society & Space *"Parreñas’s Decolonizing Extinction is a beautifully written book, in which she uses a case study of orangutan rehabilitation on Borneo to weave together many complex analytic threads: gender, race, and labor; care, violence, and freedom; liberalism and neoliberalism; the geological past, the colonial present, and the prospect of a different future." -- Rebecca Lave * Society & Space *“With Decolonizing Extinction, Juno Salazar Parreñas gives us a groundbreaking and beautifully written multispecies ethnography that explores the entwined lives of human and nonhuman primates. Deftly combining primatology, political ecology, and postcolonial and feminist theory, her book will interest biological and cultural anthropologists alike and has the potential to foster deeper cross-disciplinary engagement.” -- Genese Marie Sodikoff * American Ethnologist *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Introduction: Decolonizing Extinction 1 Part I. Relations 1. From Ape Motherhood to Tough Love 33 2. On the Surface of Skin and Earth 61 Part II. Enclosures 3. Forced Copulation for Conservation 83 4. Finding a Living 105 Part III. Futures 5. Arrested Autonomy 131 6. Hospice for a Dying Species 157 Conclusion: Living and Dying Together 177 Notes 189 References 223 Index 255

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Book SynopsisKatherine Verdery analyzes the 2,781 page surveillance file the Romanian secret police compiled on her during her research trips to Transylvania in the 1970s and 1980s. Reading it led her to question her identity and also revealed how deeply the secret police was embedded in everyday life.Trade Review"A memoir with the exciting elements of an espionage thriller. . . . This work of anthropological intrigue shows the author’s academic coming-of-age." -- Karl Helicher * Foreword Reviews *"Fascinating, thoughtful and occasionally riveting." -- James Ryerson * New York Times Book Review *"Coming from such a distinguished academic, Verdery’s brutally honest description of herself, including as a naive and careless young scholar, is stunning. Few books reflect so frankly and so powerfully on the nature and complications of an academic career." * Foreign Affairs *"This book raises provocative points about the effect of surveillance that will appeal to most readers." -- Laurie Unger Skinner * Library Journal *"To read one’s police file is—suddenly—to have the curtain pulled open. The self you think you know becomes a mask, concealing a devious somebody else whose relationships are mere espionage fakes. . . . [An] unforgettable book." -- Neal Ascherson * London Review of Books *"This book constitutes an excellent, detailed foray into the workings of a surveillance state in the Soviet bloc. But ultimately, this book’s strength emerges from its transparency concerning anthropological methodologies, an openness that comprises a foundational read for not only anthropology students but also for any social scientist working in post-socialist states." -- Sabrina Papazian * EuropeNow *"Surely one of the finest and most thoughtful accounts of modern surveillance that we possess." -- Mark Mazower * TLS *"Joining a growing body of literature based on secret police archival documents, Verdery’s book stands out as she deploys her craft of anthropologist to examine the unexpected material. . . . By investigating one of its most elusive yet powerful apparatuses, the Securitate, Verdery creates an enthralling ethnography of the Communist state. . . . My Life as a Spy will teach anthropology, sociology, and history students much about methodology, and it is exemplary in exposing the dilemmas inherent in that methodology." -- Irina Culic * American Ethnologist *"My Life as a Spy is Verdery’s masterpiece. . . . This is a book that should be read by all anthropologists and taught across the globe – a beautifully written, deeply engaged and engaging text that shows just what a wonderful and revelatory discipline anthropology can be when in the hands of committed and resourceful scholars." -- Michael Stewart * Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute *"This captivating memoir is like none I have read before. . . . A masterpiece." -- Kate Brown * Slavic Review *"Every anthropologist should read this book." -- Steven Sampson * PoLAR *Table of ContentsPreface xi A Note of Fonts, Pseudonyms, and Pronunciation xiii Acknowledgments xv Prologue 1 Part I. Research under Surveillance 1. The 1970s: "The Folklorist" as Military Spy 33 2. The 1980s: The Enemy's Many Masks 111 Excursus. Reflections on Reading One's File 181 Part II. Inside the Mechanisms of Surveillance 3. Revelations 195 4. Ruminations 277 Epilogue 295 Notes 299 Bibliography 309 Index 315

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Book SynopsisIn Cooking Data Crystal Biruk offers an ethnographic account of research into the demographics of HIV and AIDS in Malawi in which she rethinks how quantitative health data is produced by showing how data production is inevitably entangled with the lives of those who produce it.Trade Review“A brilliant example of an ethnography of global health. Crystal Biruk offers a very insightful, convincingly argued and well-substantiated account of the effects of what has become the most common type of research not only in global health but the development industry more generally.” -- Anna Wolkenhauer * LSE Review of Books *"Bookended by a thoughtful introduction and conclusion . . . I recommend this book to anyone who does survey work in Africa. . . . Its prose is scholarly but accessible and Biruk does a good job of marrying theoretical concepts to real world examples." -- Kevin Fridy * Journal of Modern African Studies *"Cooking Data succeeds . . . by giving life to the trajectory of data from raw to cooked and troubling what we think we know about what happens in the field." -- Monica Grant * Population and Development Review *"Impressive in its focus and scope, Cooking Data makes a clear and compelling case for the social thickness of numbers. . . . This is a substantive contribution to our understanding of the role of data in global health." -- Damien Droney * Somatosphere *"Cooking Data is a powerful critique of the understanding that survey data are an objective and complete representation of reality. . . . I strongly recommend using this publication as a required reading in undergraduate and graduate courses in Anthropology, Demography, Sociology, and related social sciences that teach students to design and conduct qualitative as well as quantitative research. Further, those interested in African Studies, Global Health, and International Development will tremendously benefit from reading this publication as these disciplines are strongly influenced by survey research. The book is also a must-read for agencies, policy makers, and funding agencies. . . ." -- Alexander Rödlach * Anthropos *“The continued relevance of Biruk’s work is clear in the midst of the global COVID-19 pandemic…. At a time when trust in numbers is increasingly shaken, Biruk offers nuanced insights on the production of numbers that prompts discussion about the role of feminist science studies to both critically examine how numbers attain their authority and simultaneously build capacity for fact based decision making in a post-truth era where powerful leaders intentionally spread harmful misinformation.” -- Angela Okune * Catalyst *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Introduction. An Anthropologist among the Demographers: Assembling Data in Survey Research Worlds 1 1. The Office in the Field: Building Survey Infrastructures 31 2. Living Project to Project: Brokering Local Knowledge in the Field 67 3. Clean Data, Messy Gifts: Soap-for-Information Transactions in the Field 100 4. Materializing Clean Data in the Field 129 5. When Numbers Travel: The Politics of Making Evidence-Based Policy 166 Conclusion. Anthropology in and of (Critical) Global Health 200 Appendix. Sample Household Roster Questions 217 Notes 223 Bibliography 237 Index 269

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Book SynopsisArturo Escobar presents a new vision of design theory by arguing for the creation of what he calls “autonomous design”—a design practice aimed at channeling design’s world-making capacity toward ways of being and doing that are deeply attuned to justice and the Earth.Trade Review"Escobar’s literature review and theoretical discussion stand out. Some of the ground he covers includes critical design studies, ethnographic approaches to design, participatory design, and decolonized design. Anthropology has a lot to offer design, Escobar argues, because we study the interplay of materiality, meaning, and practice. . . . Escobar’s discussion is built on a foundation of work emanating from a panopoly of Latin American scholars, all of whom appear to be fascinating in their own rights. . . . Through Escobar I felt like I was glimpsing the depth and breadth of that body of literature for the first time." -- Matt Thompson * Anthrodendum *"Designs for the Pluriverse is a heavy-hitting theoretical framework with potential to inform the practice of the design scholar or professional in any field, from planning or architecture to product design, engineering, and beyond. The work makes sense of generations of decolonial scholarship, pushing the reader towards understanding their design work as more relational, long-term-oriented, and transformative than previously assumed." -- Darien Williams * Carolina Planning Journal *“I can emphatically state that Designs for the Pluriverse is a superb and welcome addition both to the expanding literature on design in anthropology, and to design theory more broadly. . . . Indeed, there are so many ways to read this book that almost anyone who picks it up will find something to think with.” -- Keith M. Murphy * Anthropological Quarterly *“Designs for the Pluriverse is an excellent text for design studies scholars who are interested in exploring methodologies and theories of collective existence and creation, intertwining a series of case studies that support autonomous design with the theories to challenge modernist anthropocentrism. Together, they provide a strong foundation for readers to continue pursuing how to decolonize the world by redesigning the human being and designing the pluriverse, a world in which many worlds fit.” -- Juan Carlos Rodríguez Rivera * Design and Culture *“Escobar’s book brings together a wealth of relevant perspectives, initiatives, and references and is essential reading for all those interested in design and its potential for transition movements and the struggle of marginalized communities.” -- Ton Otto * Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute *Table of ContentsPreface and Acknowledgments ix Introduction 1 I. Design for the Real World: But Which "World"? What "Design"? What "Real"? 1. Out of the Studio and into the Flow of Socionatural Life 25 2. Elements for a Cultural Studies of Design 49 II. The Ontological Reorientation of Design 3. In the Background of Our Culture: Rationalism, Ontological Dualism, and Relationality 79 4. An Outline of Ontological Design 105 III. Designs for the Pluriverse 5. Design for Transitions 137 6. Autonomous Design and the Politics of Relationality and the Communal 165 Conclusion 202 Notes 229 References 259 Index 281

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Book SynopsisIn Domesticating Democracy Susan Helen Ellison offers an ethnography of Alternate Dispute Resolution (ADR) organizations in El Alto, Bolivia, showing that by helping residents cope with their interpersonal disputes and economic troubles how they change the ways Bolivians interact with the state and global capitalism, making them into self-reliant citizens.Trade Review"An in-depth study of the complexities of a foreign-founded programme of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) and its eff ects, appropriations and interpretations amongst El Alto residents in Bolivia . . . particularly relevant for practitioners and civil servants." -- Nico Tassi * Anthropology in Action *"Ellison uses insightful accounts to weave people’s daily experiences of conflicts and vulnerability into the work of the ADR centres and the judicial structure of the country. . . . The book is very valuable in helping us understand Bolivia’s complex process of change, the structural impediments to peaceful progress and the vulnerabilities of large proportions of the populations – conditions that are not automatically helped by foreign funded programmes." -- Charlotta Widmark * Journal of Latin American Studies *“[Domesticating Democracy] elegantly elucidates the ways that Bolivian political conflicts move across and thereby newly draw together domestic, national, and transnational practices and institutions.” -- Mareike Winchell * Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute *“[Domesticating Democracy] is an important book for scholars of the Andes and political and legal studies scholars, as well as anyone trying to get their head around what neoliberalism is and what (hopefully, someday) comes next. . . . The clear writing and strong narrative thread make it a good option for advanced undergraduates and graduate students in all disciplines.” -- Susan Ellison * Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Introduction 1 Uprising 31 1. Fix the State or Fix the People 37 2. Cultures of Peace, Cultures of Conflict 64 3. A Market for Mediators 95 A Brief Recess: Conciliating Conflict in Alto Lima 121 4. Between Compadres There Is No Interest 134 5. The Conflictual Social Life of an Industrial Sewing Machine 163 6. You Have to Comply with Paper 194 Conclusion 221 Notes 235 References 255 Index 275

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Book SynopsisIn Atmospheric Things Derek P. McCormack explores how atmospheres are imagined, understood, and experienced through experiments with a deceptively simple object: the balloon. Since the invention of balloon flight in the late eighteenth century, balloons have drawn crowds at fairs and expositions, inspired the visions of artists and writers, and driven technological development from meteorology to military surveillance. By foregrounding the distinctive properties of the balloon, McCormack reveals its remarkable capacity to disclose the affective and meteorological dimensions of atmospheres. Drawing together different senses of the object, the elements, and experience, McCormack uses the balloon to show how practices and technologies of envelopment allow atmospheres to be generated, made meaningful, and modified. He traces the alluring entanglement of envelopment in artistic, political, and technological projects, from the 2009 Pixar movie Up and Andy Warhol’s 19Trade Review"Derek P. McCormack offers a unique perspective on the relationship between object and atmosphere ... This title brings a fresh lens to topics as diverse as sensory perceptions, the concept of allure, and understandings of volume. . . . Recommended. Graduate students and researchers." -- C. Leachman * Choice *"Atmospheric Things offers a bold new intervention in the study of media infrastructures with incredible lucidity. . . . This book will be instrumental to media scholars interested in new ways of thinking about the intersecting lines of infrastructure, affect, meteorology, envelopment, and even trauma and objecthood, where both human and nonhuman agencies from bodies to balloons are theorized in terms of the atmospheric. By inviting scholars to consider that the allure of atmospheres rests in its resistance to full perception and sense, and that the free-floating dirigibility of balloons offers productive ways to imagine and experience atmospheres, McCormack lays the groundwork for future work in atmospheric infrastructures and opens room for the enchanting, generative possibilities of simply letting go." -- Miguel Penabella * Synoptique *"A thoughtful, challenging and very perceptively written work. . . . This book is very much about finding new and experimental ways, using the atmospheric thing of the balloon, to make explicit the atmosphere as a political, ethical and aesthetic commons." -- Marijn Nieuwenhuis * Social & Cultural Geography *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments xi Introduction 1 1. Envelopment 17 2. Sensing 35 3. Allure 55 4. Release 79 5. Volume 101 6. Sounding 121 7. Tensions 145 8. Hail 171 9. Elements 195 Notes 219 Bibliography 259 Index 279

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Book SynopsisIn the industrialized nations of the global North, well-funded agencies like the CDC attend to citizens'' health, monitoring and treating for toxic poisons like lead. How do the under-resourced nations of the global South meet such challenges? In Edges of Exposure, Noémi Tousignant traces the work of toxicologists in Senegal as they have sought to warn of and remediate the presence of heavy metals and other poisons in their communities. Situating recent toxic scandals within histories of science and regulation in postcolonial Africa, Tousignant shows how decolonization and structural adjustment have impacted toxicity and toxicology research. Ultimately, as Tousignant reveals, scientists'' capacity to conduct research—as determined by material working conditions, levels of public investment, and their creative but not always successful efforts to make visible the harm of toxic poisons—affects their ability to keep equipment, labs, projects, and careers goiTrade Review"Edges of Exposure has much to recommend it and belongs on the bookshelf of anyone interested in postcolonial and African science, toxic exposure and risk, global health, or contemporary Africa. At a brisk 149 pages of readable prose and relatively accessible academic language, it would also fit well on graduate or upper-level undergraduate reading lists." -- Kirsten Moore-Sheeley * Journal of the History of Medicine *"Edges of Exposure is a powerful contribution to ethnographically grounded STS research focused on toxicology, global environmental health science, and what might be termed postcolonial laboratory life. . . . It is a unique contribution to the broader anthropology of toxics and global environmental health science studies." -- Peter C. Little * Anthropological Quarterly *"Edges of Exposure . . . drives home the starkness of our uneven global economy of health. . . . Tousignant offers a much-needed ethnography of the ways that scientists can perform an emerging state, coupled with an in-depth exploration of the ramifications therein, and leaves us with the fundamental question of how to address global inequities that demand such precarious performances." -- Marlee Tichenor * Somatosphere *"Tousignant makes the consequences of precariousness, uncertainty, and lack of autonomy in research concrete and tangible. In this regard, Edges of Exposure provides a timely warning of the dangers to which, as inhabitants of an increasingly toxic, interconnected, and unequal world, we are all exposed, both as citizens and as public scientists." -- Agata Mazzeo * Isis *"Edges of Exposure is certainly important reading for those interested in the history and anthropology of African health, science and technology studies in Africa, environmental health, and the growing literature on toxicologies. It is a great addition to these fields and greatly contributes to growing concerns over toxins in Africa." -- Kristin Peterson * Catalyst *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Introduction: Poisons and Unprotection in Africa 1 1. After Interruption: Recovering Movement in the Polyrhythmic Laboratory 25 2. Advancement: Futures of Toxicology during "la Coopération" 59 3. Routine Rhythms and the Regulatory Imagination 85 4. Prolonging Project Locustox, Instrastructuring Sahelian Ecotoxicology 105 5. Waiting/Not Waiting for Poison Control 125 Epilogue. Partial Privileges 143 Notes 151 Bibliography 179 Index 205

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Book SynopsisFollowing Senegalese toxicologists as they struggle to keep equipment, labs, and projects operating, Noémi Tousignant explores the impact of insufficient investments in scientific capacity in postcolonial Africa.Trade Review"Edges of Exposure has much to recommend it and belongs on the bookshelf of anyone interested in postcolonial and African science, toxic exposure and risk, global health, or contemporary Africa. At a brisk 149 pages of readable prose and relatively accessible academic language, it would also fit well on graduate or upper-level undergraduate reading lists." -- Kirsten Moore-Sheeley * Journal of the History of Medicine *"Edges of Exposure is a powerful contribution to ethnographically grounded STS research focused on toxicology, global environmental health science, and what might be termed postcolonial laboratory life. . . . It is a unique contribution to the broader anthropology of toxics and global environmental health science studies." -- Peter C. Little * Anthropological Quarterly *"Edges of Exposure . . . drives home the starkness of our uneven global economy of health. . . . Tousignant offers a much-needed ethnography of the ways that scientists can perform an emerging state, coupled with an in-depth exploration of the ramifications therein, and leaves us with the fundamental question of how to address global inequities that demand such precarious performances." -- Marlee Tichenor * Somatosphere *"Tousignant makes the consequences of precariousness, uncertainty, and lack of autonomy in research concrete and tangible. In this regard, Edges of Exposure provides a timely warning of the dangers to which, as inhabitants of an increasingly toxic, interconnected, and unequal world, we are all exposed, both as citizens and as public scientists." -- Agata Mazzeo * Isis *"Edges of Exposure is certainly important reading for those interested in the history and anthropology of African health, science and technology studies in Africa, environmental health, and the growing literature on toxicologies. It is a great addition to these fields and greatly contributes to growing concerns over toxins in Africa." -- Kristin Peterson * Catalyst *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Introduction: Poisons and Unprotection in Africa 1 1. After Interruption: Recovering Movement in the Polyrhythmic Laboratory 25 2. Advancement: Futures of Toxicology during "la Coopération" 59 3. Routine Rhythms and the Regulatory Imagination 85 4. Prolonging Project Locustox, Instrastructuring Sahelian Ecotoxicology 105 5. Waiting/Not Waiting for Poison Control 125 Epilogue. Partial Privileges 143 Notes 151 Bibliography 179 Index 205

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Book SynopsisFrom prehistoric midden building to late twentieth century industrial pollution, Transforming New Orleans and Its Environs traces through history the impact of human activity upon the environment of this fascinating and unpredictable region.

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Book SynopsisThese multidisciplinary essays explore the cultural mediation of relationships between people and urban spaces in Latin/o America, and how these mediations shape the identities of cities and their residents.Trade ReviewOriginal and stimulating, Cultures of the City considers very current and often unexpected topics with creativity and rigor. This book fills significant gaps in the field of urban cultural studies as it examines the city from both humanistic and social science perspectives.-Marcy E. Schwartz, Rutgers University

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Book SynopsisThe first English-language study of Soviet culture clubs in Kyrgyzstan.

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Book SynopsisBy interweaving case studies on kinship, legal negotiations, festive events, mourning rituals, and political and business dealings, Beyer shows how salt is the binding element in rural Kyrgyz social life and how it is used to explain and negotiate moral behavior and to postulate communal identity.Trade Review“Judith Beyer has done a magnificent job of unfolding current notions of legalism among the Kyrgyz of Talas province. Her prose is crystal clear, her ethnography is rich, and her theoretical engagement is stimulating and accessible. This book deserves a place on readers’ shelves alongside the best works on the anthropology of post-socialist Eurasia.” —Paolo Sartori, Institute of Iranian Studies, Vienna

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Book SynopsisWe are still struggling to fully understand the transformation of Islam in a region that's evolved through a complex and dynamic processTrade Review“Islam, Society, and Politics in Central Asia tackles a topic of crucial concern for scholars and policymakers alike. Moving well beyond the punditry that characterizes most discussions, this truly interdisciplinary endeavor provides muchneeded scholarship about Islam built upon wellconsidered fieldwork. In doing so, it makes a powerful case for grounding our knowledge in the realities of the region.” —Edward Schatz, University of Toronto

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Book SynopsisMaps the circuits of cross fertilizations among disciplines in the humanities and social sciences that have developed from Clifford Geertz's "interpretive turn." This volume interrogate the fixity of interpretation and open new spaces of inquiry.Trade Review"In this important new book, Ethnographica Moralia: Experiments in Interpretive Anthropology, editors Neni Panourgia and George E. Marcus have assembled an impressive array of chapters that map the crisscrossing circuits of interpretative inquiry that have followed from Clifford Geertz's (and Marcus's) original arguments." -American Ethnologist "Whether self-reflexive, self-critical or engaged in radical refashioning, the strength of the discipline as it reframes itself through this beautiful volume is luminously evident." -- -Gil Anidjar Columbia University "Essays by American, Greek, and other scholars who draw on the theories of Clifford Geertz." -The Chronicle of Higher Education "A strong, timely and coherent collection ... a clarion-call for the ongoing relevance of interpretive anthropology to the discipline." -- -David Sutton Southern Illinois University Carbondale

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Book SynopsisTells stories of Greek Leftists as paradigmatic figures of abjection, given that between 1929 and 1974 tens of thousands of Greek dissidents were detained and tortured in prisons, places of exile, and concentration and rehabilitation camps. This title presents the history of how Greek Left was constituted by Greek state as a zone of danger.Trade Review" ... An anthropological approach to the G reek state's response to the Greek left." -H-War List-serv Dangerous Citizens is several brilliant books at once: meditation, memoir, ethnography, an intricate political history of Modern Greece. But it has a single subject: what happens to persons who are defined by others as dangerous and yet feel themselves to be powerless, banished to a social margin. Neni Parourgia's goal is to reconstruct and understand the daily (and nightly) lives of these persons, and to orchestrate their eloquent but all too rarely heard cries. -- -Michael Wood Princeton University "Dangerous Citizens is a powerful and unforgettable book. It is at once a horrific history of nearly a century of state violence in Greece that few people may be aware of; a profound meditation on the conditions of possibility for both the idea and the reality of concentration camps; and a text that intertwines ethnography, history, and personal memoir to very powerful effect." -- -Sherry Ortner University of California, Los Angeles "Intimate, fascinating, and inventively analytic ... A worthy and brilliant successor to Panourgia's much acclaimed Fragments of Death, Fables of Identity: An Athenian Anthropography." -- -George E. Marcus University of California, Irvine "Columbia anthropology professor Neni Panourgia's new project takes the concept of an 'interactive conversation' a step further. The recent online release of Dangerous Citiznes: The Greek Left and the Terror of the State by far exceeds the publication of the book by the same name in being revolutionary. Instead of being your average Kindle e-book or online PDF, the new Website is a freely accessed interactive, multimedia text that exemplifies an exciting but problematic pathway for published scholarship." -The Eye "A riveting ethnographic account of the experiences of dissidents of the Greek state in the course of the twentieth century. The insights of Panourgia's new book promise to change the way in which anthropologists read and engage with social theory. This book should become compulsory reading for any course in anthropology and European studies." -- -Yael Navaro-Yashin Cambridge University "Dangerous Citizens assembles paradoxical evidence of leftist formations in Greece, long waged and suppressed. A multi-scaled history of political suffering, this fascinating text is plain-spoken yet gnomic, with adroit comparative asides to wrap non-specialist readers in drastic episodes artfully unfurled. Neni Panourgia resists sanitized geopolitical generalization; she lodges patently nationalist loci (e.g., war-waging) in radically skewed intimacies of experience. Revisiting fabled scenes of violent encounter and more-than-traumatic memory, this gifted critic offers uncompromising ethnography of manifest dissidence, everyday resilience, and specificities of terror (sometimes unwitting) endlessly difficult to fathom." -- -James A. Boon Princeton University "Dangerous Citizens is a simultaneous indictment of the "liberal" nation-state's blithe pretensions and willful self-ignorance; of the political and discursive relegation of modern Greek history to the historical margins of the colonial "civilizing mission"; and of inhuman simplifications of the past everywhere. In an evocation of Oedipus that owes nothing to crass invocations of continuity with the ancient world, Neni Panourgia writes with the ethical passion of a partial witness who nonetheless claims no special privilege other than that of the common humanity denied by the state to those it repeatedly configures as its enemies. In posing this appealingly controversial challenge to the liberal self-imagination, moreover, Panourgia -- who has honed her distinctive writing idiom into a compelling mix of careful scholarship and stylistic adventurism -- calls anthropology itself to account." -- -Michael Herzfeld Harvard University "A most challenging reflection about the presence of the past in society, Panourgia's new book relates the singular story of the Greek Left, bringing out its multiple voices and often conflicting narratives. In this ethnography, based both on the author's past experiences and on extensive fieldwork in Athens, the narrator/anthropologist explores the tension between individual voices and collective representations and boldly confirms -again- that the writing of anthropology can always be an innovative experience." -- -Maria Couroucli Research Fellow CNRS, University of Paris-Ouest-Nanterre

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Book SynopsisDealing with the nexus of religion and power, this volume radically undermines the idea that the political relevance of religion is a thing of the past.Trade Review"An inspired guide for understanding the comeback of religion in a world that appeared to be secularizing. This seminal mix of texts on different parts of the world critically addresses both the often all too easy suppositions that made ever further secularization seem inevitable and the dangers of equally simplistic analysis of the revival of religion as an effect of changing power relations. The various authors show the way for increasingly sophisticated interpretations of the complex links between religion and power." -- -Peter Geschiere University of Amsterdam "Essays on power as a central aspect of religion, including its intersections with politics, art, and other realms; topics include Catholicism and secessionist warfare in Papua New Guinea." -The Chronicle of Higher Education

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Book SynopsisDealing with the nexus of religion and power, this volume radically undermines the idea that the political relevance of religion is a thing of the past. It also includes essays that offer broad analyses of the nature of religion and power in their modes of emergence today and specific case studies from anthropology, sociology, and the arts.Trade Review"An inspired guide for understanding the comeback of religion in a world that appeared to be secularizing. This seminal mix of texts on different parts of the world critically addresses both the often all too easy suppositions that made ever further secularization seem inevitable and the dangers of equally simplistic analysis of the revival of religion as an effect of changing power relations. The various authors show the way for increasingly sophisticated interpretations of the complex links between religion and power." -- -Peter Geschiere University of Amsterdam "Essays on power as a central aspect of religion, including its intersections with politics, art, and other realms; topics include Catholicism and secessionist warfare in Papua New Guinea." -The Chronicle of Higher Education

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Book SynopsisThe major contribution of anthropology to the intellectual and the political world has been to show the worthiness of attending to the peoples and cultures of the world. But, due to the modification of treatment of differences, the emphasis has then been put on recognizing similarities. This title features essays that are against this trend.Trade Review"To read this book of essays by James Siegel is to embark on that rarest and most exciting of journeys; in the process of moving with him across the varied terrain of his own intellectual career, one's thought is transformed. Objects and Objections of Ethnography comprises old and new essays on classical topics in social anthropology, considered anew as contemporary questions and addressed with uncompromising originality. In places as far flung as Paris and Atjeh, Siegel meditates on the idea of the fetish, the relationship between the living and the dead, and the question of the stranger. Here too are analyses of the state and the politics of recognition, of the discourse of ethnicity, of trauma theory and the sublime, and of the anxieties afflicting museology today. At times startling, sometimes perplexing, always brave, frequently beautiful, and ultimately persuasive, this book is a challenge and a joy to read. In my opinion, no other anthropologist writing today can lay stronger claim to the word 'brilliant.'" -- -Rosalind C. Morris Columbia University "Jim Siegel is one of the strongest thinkers in the discipline of anthropology. Academic careers have been made on the basis of one good idea. Each of these essays develops a whole flotilla of good ideas, while placing the methods and objects of anthropology in an entirely new light. An outstanding work." -- -Danilyn Rutherford University of California, Santa Cruz

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Book SynopsisThe Perils of Uglytown develops a new concept, structural misanthropology, and traces its operation first in the dialogues of Plato and then in the work of humanists, playwrights, and painters of the Renaissance in Italy, England, and the Netherlands.Trade Review"The Perils of Uglytown is a distillation of Harry Berger, Jr.'s intensive study of the Republic and other Platonic dialogues over several decades and makes an important contribution to understanding these texts and to the literary interpretation of the dialogues generally. Its highly original, provocative, and stimulating close reading of well-chosen passages is grounded in Berger's understanding of the textuality of the Platonic dialogues." -- -Seth L. Schein University of California, Davis "Somewhere in his innermost closet Harry Berger, Jr., must harbor the secret of perennial freshness. For decades now his vitally important work has conferred the power to see with new eyes familiar works of literature, philosophy, and art, as if their innermost meanings were being glimpsed for the first time." -- -Dr. Stephen Greenblatt Harvard UniversityTable of Contents1. A Polar Model of Culture Change: Introduction to Structural Misanthropology Part 1. Misanthropology in Plato's Dialogues 2. Critical Logography: Thucydides and Plato on the Politics of Communication 3 Katabasis and Narrative 4. Safemindedness: Lysis and Crito 5. Dying Angry: The Wrath of Socrates in Plato's Phaedo 6. More Than a Talking Head: Socrates and Cephalus in Republic 1 7. The Perils of Uglytown: Structural Misanthropology in the Republic 8. Adeimantus and Glaucon 9 Apprehension in the Timaeus: Plato's Nervous Narrator Part 2. Misanthropology in Early Modern Culture 10. Cybernetic Alienation: Prosthetic Strategies in Alberti, Leonardo, Castiglione, and Machiavelli 11. Collecting Body Parts in Leonardo's Cave: Vasari's Lives and the Erotics of Obscene Connoisseurship 12. "Fenced ears": The King's Body Impolitic in Gorboduc, King Lear, and Richard II 13. Prospero's Humiliation 14. Bad Boys and Hipsters: Shakespeare's Iago and Rembrandt's Rembrandt 15. The Drama of Competitive Posing: Portrait Plots in Hals and Rembrandt

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Book SynopsisUntouchable Fictions dissects the aesthetic and political crises of realism in order to chart the development of Dalit or “untouchable caste” writing. Arguing that Dalit literature responds to a failure of older literary movement to properly accommodate caste, the book situates the aesthetic maneuvers of the Dalit text in dialectical relationship with older progressive literary movements.Trade Review"Untouchable Fictions goes beyond a mere recognition of the centrality of realism in the postcolonial imagination. Focusing on Dalit writing in India, Gajarawala shows how realism, like other terms, came up against the force of locality and the limits presented by a literature of protest. Gajarawala's work thus recuperates a Dalit literature that was driven by the need to go beyond a politics of identity to provide a critique of the formal logic of realism as it confronted the crisis of caste. Untouchable Fictions is outstanding in its recognition of the interplay of realism (as a formal structure), the literary canon (as the condition of possibility of nationalism), and the crisis of caste as the social force that could redirect or question all the narrative accounts on which a literary history of India was premised. The book's brilliant engagement with both the cultural politics of Dalit writing and the aesthetic ideology of Dalit literature makes it a model of the work that awaits to be done in our field." -- -Simon Gikandi Princeton University "Dalit writing has posed extremely serious and challenging questions to literary studies in India. This book presents a sustained, insightful, and original engagement with these questions as it maps the project of modern Dalit (primarily Hindi) fiction." -- -Simona Sawhney University of Minnesota "Gajarawala is among the most intellectually ambitious of the contemporary Anglophone literary critics of Dalit writing, and she nicely manages to retain a stereoscopic focus on Dalit literary production and Dalit aesthetic theory." -- -Parama Roy University of California, Davis

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Book SynopsisA groundbreaking account of the two largest autonomous women’s associations in Italy during the early Cold War—the UDI and the CIF—and how they developed an active Italian and global agenda for the advancement of women’s rightsTrade Review"Italian Women and International Cold War Politics, 1944-1968 identifies a real gap in scholarship on international women's movements on the period between World War Two and the Second Wave feminist movement of the 1970s This book address that gap offering an engaging and well documented account of two Italian women's associations, the UDI and the CIF. Pojmann offers both new and original material, and develops critical understanding of an important and generally overlooked stage in women's organizations." -- -Helen LaVille University of Birmingham "The history of two important Italian women's organizations, the Unione Donne Italiane (UDI) and the Catholic Centro Italiano Femminile (CIF), set in the context of the Cold War era, 1945-68, is a valuable contribution to the scholarship of women's organizations and national and international politics. " -- -Karen Garner SUNY Empire State College "Pojmann's work is an excellent addition to literature on women's movements, postwar Italy, and the complexity of Cold War politics." -H-Net Reviews "The book should find an audience among scholars who will value access to new Italian evidence, as well as in undergraduate classrooms, where students of women's history and students of contemporary European history will both have a reading either of the whole book or of specific sections to provide strong coverage of the Cold War years in their syllabi. The real value here is, as I stated at the beginning of this review, that English-language readers are now being enabled to join the conversation about gendering the Cold War and about the significance of Italy as a laboratory of politics; and Pojmann's book makes a very useful contribution to that project." -H-Diplo

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Book SynopsisThrough a series of literary and cultural analyses, this book examines current theories of resistance and their impact on contemporary Latin American cultural discourse, developing a cultural theory of “illiteracy.”Trade Review"Abraham Acosta is fearless. Breathing new life into the well-worn contradictions of philosophical abstraction and political practice, speech and writing, hegemony and subalternity, he doesn't settle for splitting the difference. With nuance, verve, erudition and extraordinary breadth, Thresholds of Illiteracy brings a heterodox approach to old debates-indigenismo, testimonio, zapatismo, la frontera-and goes a long way toward clearing the ground for a re-engaged Latin Americanism to come. This book represents the best of a new generation of critical-theoretical work on Latin American cultural politics." -- -Joshua Lund University of Pittsburgh "This is an impressive study that covers a wide variety of theoretical and literary texts, some canonical and others not." -Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature "Using indigenista novels, testimonio, border narratives and EZLN declarations as sites of intervention, Thresholds of Literacy aims at breaking the impasse between orality and literacy that for many years has shaped important areas of Latin American cultural and literary studies. Acosta demonstrates that, by insisting too much on difference, even critics with the best intentions end up reinforcing the inequality they wanted to contest. Opting for indistinction, Acosta advances the concept of illiteracy, which pertaining to orality and literacy alike, names a "condition of semiological excess and ungovernability" that allow him to formulate the conditions of radical equality of both. This important book, covering an impressive archive of standard studies on the topic and the most recent critical analyses, will be a staple critical resource for anyone studying Latin America from the colonial period to the present." -- -Ivonne del Valle University of California, Berkeley "Thresholds of illiteracy: Theory, Latin America, and the Crisis of Resistance addresses the most important and controversial issues facing contemporary Latin American studies. Some concern aesthetic matters, such as the debate between traditional literature and testimonio, some political ones, such as US-Mexican migration, but all offer rigorous interventions into the relationship of aesthetics and politics. The author offers a superb summary of the past thirty years of research within Latin Americanism and, through careful readings of Latin American and European poststructuralist theory, advances this research in a novel fashion, creating a work that will greatly interest all scholars in the field." -- -Brett Levinson Binghamton University "Thresholds of Illiteracy is destined to make an indelible mark in Latin American literary critical and cultural studies. One of the book's major theoretical contributions resides in Acosta's highly original development of what he calls "illiteracy," which sustains a number of interrelated senses and metonymical associations related to classical ethnography, postcolonial studies and contemporary debates in political thought. Acosta deals very capably with a wide range of geographical and cultural contexts, including Peru, Cuba, Central America, Mexico and the US-Mexico border. Each chapter introduces new insights based on theoretically-informed and rigorous analyses of literary and cultural texts as well as historical events. While Acosta's discussions are culturally and historically grounded in specific areas and periods, his insights have clear relevance for all periods and regions of Latin America precisely because they engage with the timeless debates and problems that constitute this field of study: representation and truth, knowledge and power, culture and politics, and so on." -- -Patrick Dove Indiana UniversityTable of ContentsAcknowledgements Introduction Chapter 1. Thresholds of Illiteracy, or the Deadlock of Resistance in Latin America Chapter 2. Other Perus: Colono Insurrection and the Limits of Indigenista Narrative Chapter 3. Beyond Transcriptions: Testimonio, Illiteracy, and the Politics of the Literary Chapter 4. Silence, Subalternity, the EZLN, and the Egalitarian Contingency Chapter 5. Hinging on Exclusion and Exception: Bare Life at the US/Mexico Border Afterword. Illiteracy, Ethnic Studies, and the Lessons of SB1070 Notes Works Cited

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Book SynopsisThrough a series of literary and cultural analyses, this book examines current theories of resistance and their impact on contemporary Latin American cultural discourse, developing a cultural theory of illiteracy.Trade Review"Abraham Acosta is fearless. Breathing new life into the well-worn contradictions of philosophical abstraction and political practice, speech and writing, hegemony and subalternity, he doesn't settle for splitting the difference. With nuance, verve, erudition and extraordinary breadth, Thresholds of Illiteracy brings a heterodox approach to old debates-indigenismo, testimonio, zapatismo, la frontera-and goes a long way toward clearing the ground for a re-engaged Latin Americanism to come. This book represents the best of a new generation of critical-theoretical work on Latin American cultural politics." -- -Joshua Lund University of Pittsburgh "This is an impressive study that covers a wide variety of theoretical and literary texts, some canonical and others not." -Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature "Using indigenista novels, testimonio, border narratives and EZLN declarations as sites of intervention, Thresholds of Literacy aims at breaking the impasse between orality and literacy that for many years has shaped important areas of Latin American cultural and literary studies. Acosta demonstrates that, by insisting too much on difference, even critics with the best intentions end up reinforcing the inequality they wanted to contest. Opting for indistinction, Acosta advances the concept of illiteracy, which pertaining to orality and literacy alike, names a "condition of semiological excess and ungovernability" that allow him to formulate the conditions of radical equality of both. This important book, covering an impressive archive of standard studies on the topic and the most recent critical analyses, will be a staple critical resource for anyone studying Latin America from the colonial period to the present." -- -Ivonne del Valle University of California, Berkeley "Thresholds of illiteracy: Theory, Latin America, and the Crisis of Resistance addresses the most important and controversial issues facing contemporary Latin American studies. Some concern aesthetic matters, such as the debate between traditional literature and testimonio, some political ones, such as US-Mexican migration, but all offer rigorous interventions into the relationship of aesthetics and politics. The author offers a superb summary of the past thirty years of research within Latin Americanism and, through careful readings of Latin American and European poststructuralist theory, advances this research in a novel fashion, creating a work that will greatly interest all scholars in the field." -- -Brett Levinson Binghamton University "Thresholds of Illiteracy is destined to make an indelible mark in Latin American literary critical and cultural studies. One of the book's major theoretical contributions resides in Acosta's highly original development of what he calls "illiteracy," which sustains a number of interrelated senses and metonymical associations related to classical ethnography, postcolonial studies and contemporary debates in political thought. Acosta deals very capably with a wide range of geographical and cultural contexts, including Peru, Cuba, Central America, Mexico and the US-Mexico border. Each chapter introduces new insights based on theoretically-informed and rigorous analyses of literary and cultural texts as well as historical events. While Acosta's discussions are culturally and historically grounded in specific areas and periods, his insights have clear relevance for all periods and regions of Latin America precisely because they engage with the timeless debates and problems that constitute this field of study: representation and truth, knowledge and power, culture and politics, and so on." -- -Patrick Dove Indiana UniversityTable of ContentsAcknowledgements Introduction Chapter 1. Thresholds of Illiteracy, or the Deadlock of Resistance in Latin America Chapter 2. Other Perus: Colono Insurrection and the Limits of Indigenista Narrative Chapter 3. Beyond Transcriptions: Testimonio, Illiteracy, and the Politics of the Literary Chapter 4. Silence, Subalternity, the EZLN, and the Egalitarian Contingency Chapter 5. Hinging on Exclusion and Exception: Bare Life at the US/Mexico Border Afterword. Illiteracy, Ethnic Studies, and the Lessons of SB1070 Notes Works Cited

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Book SynopsisThe essays in this book examine how important themes in Veena Das’s work have been critically assimilated in the work of a younger generation. Looking at the relation between the event and the everyday, the essays ask how we might trace the picture of thinking in anthropology through ethnography and through artistic, literary and philosophical practice.Trade Review"Veena Das is one of the most deservedly celebrated and widely read anthropologists in the world today. Her work reaches across disciplinary lines, engaging the interests of philosophers, social scientists, cultural theorists, and scholars in gender studies, performance studies, postcolonial studies, and crosscultural psychology. The essays in this volume testify both to her eclecticism and her ethic of responsiveness to others. In groundbreaking analyses of 'critical events' (such as the Bhopal disaster of 1985) and of refugee 'woundedness,' memory, and pain, and in theoretical arguments for an anthropology of 'life itself' based on 'the descent into the ordinary,' Veena Das has demonstrated how ethnographic praxis implies a demanding humanism in which one places one's own identity and security on the line in order to achieve a deep engagement with what is at stake for the other without, however, forfeiting one's own critical voice and vision." -- -Michael D. Jackson author of The Wherewithal of Life: Ethics, Migration, and the Question of Wellbeing "In our world, in which many kinds of discourses of the suffering of others have become blunted from overuse, it is both heartening and stimulating to discover this volume of essays in which a number of distinguished colleagues of Veena Das's engage with her remarkable body of work in order to produce fresh models of thinking about the ethics of ethnography, the nature of events both ordinary and extraordinary, and the limited communicability of pain, whether collectively or individually embodied." -- -Michael Moon Emory UniversityTable of Contents1. Conversations, Generations, Genres: Anthropological Knowing as a Form of Life Roma Chatterji 2. Ethnography in the Time of Martyrs: History and Pain in Current Anthropological Practice Sylvain Perdigon 3. Pedagogies of the Clinic: Learning to Live (Again and Again) Aaron Goodfellow 4. Disembodied Conjugality Lotte Buch Segal 5. World, Image and Movement: Translating Pain Ein Lal and Roma Chatterji 6. Conceptual Vita Bhrigupati Singh 7. The Child Bears Witness: Menace, Despair and Hope in a Courtroom Pratiksha Baxi 8. Experiments with Fate: Buddhist Morality and Human Rights in Thailand Don Selby 9. Communities and Recovered Life: Suffering and Recovery in the Sikh Carnage of 1984 Yasmeen Arif 10. Sexual Violence, Law and Qualities of Affiliation Sameena Mulla 11. On Feelings and Finiteness in Everyday Life Clara Han 12. 'Listening to Voices': Immigrants, Settlers and Citizens at the Ethnic Margins of the State Sangeeta Chattoo 13. Punjabi Inscriptions of Kinship and Gender: Sayings and Songs Rita Brara 14. In the Event of an Anthropological Thought Anand Pandian 15. The Ayodhya Dispute: Law's Imagination and the Functions of the Status Quo Deepak Mehta 16. The Death of Nature in the Era of Global Warming Naveeda Khan 17. Triste Romantik: Ruminations on an Ethnographic Encounter with Philosophy Andrew Brandel 18. Making Claims to Tradition: Poetics and Politics in the Works of Young Maithil Painters Mani Shekhar Singh 19. The Mirror as Frame: Time and Narrative in the Folk Art of Bengal Roma Chatterji 20. Adjacent Thinking: A Postscript Veena Das 21. Between Words and Lives: A Thought of the Coming Together of Margins, Violence, and Suffering An Interview with Veena Das

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Book SynopsisBruno Latour is one of the major figures of contemporary thought. This book provides a comprehensive overview of the Latourian oeuvre, spanning from his early work in the sociology and anthropology of science to his recent philosophy of multiple “modes of existence.”Trade Review"Schmidgen's level-headed and comprehensive survey of Bruno Latour's career offers contemporary readers a desperately needed aid to navigate the multi-pronged and disparate engagements of this important contemporary scholar and public intellectual. Schmidgen excavates the role of exegesis dating from Latour's training in philosophy, showing how it shapes his ethnological studies of the practices of science and his contributions to the sociology of science and science studies, as well as his theorization of the Actor-Network constellation and his recent makeover as a philosopher of "modes of existence." Schmidgen's Latour is a thinker of many faces, and like the Whiteheadian actuality Latour so admires, his thinking comes from prehending the thought of a host other thinkers: thinkers with whom he resonates, like Deleuze and Guattari and Michel Serres, his friend Isabelle Stengers, but also the Catholic philosopher Charles Peguy , the Lutheran theologian Rudolf Bultmann, and the philosoher Etienne Souriau, as well as thinkers from whom he seeks distance, philosophers of historical epistemology like Canguilhem, Pierre Macherey and Dominique Lecourt, the ethnographer Marc Auge, Foucault and Lyotard. What emerges from Schmidgen's portrait is a nuanced and complex understanding of the vicissitudes of Latour's career that will do much to help English-speaking readers get to the heart of what makes Latour tick." -- -Mark Hansen Duke University, author of New Philosophy of New Media "In this accessible study of Bruno Latour's wide-ranging thought, Henning Schmidgen covers the waterfront, from Latour's early writings on exegesis to his recent studies of ecology, technologies, and modes of being. Henning Schmidgen has given us a diagram, as it were, of Latour's ever-evolving work, which Schmidgen always returns to the back and forth between Latour's empirical studies and his reflections on the idea of a network connected particulars without a fundamental root. Along the way, we pass through the landscape of modern french philosophy-Gilles Deleuze and Michel Serres to be sure, but alongside them a panoply of figures from across the disciplinary map-epistemologists, semioticians, sociologists, theologians. A remarkable introduction to the thought of a remarkable thinker." -- -Peter L. Galison Harvard UniversityTable of ContentsContents List of Abbreviations for Frequently Cited Works Introduction 1. Exegesis and Ethnology Studies in Dijon Peguy's Inscriptions The Problem of Repetition Exegeses, Re-readings, Revisions Ideology The Production of Lack 2. The Philosopher in the Laboratory At the Salk Institute Laboratory Reports Guillemin's History High-tech, the Beach, and the Post-structuralists Science as an Agonistic Field The Rhetoric of Science 3. Machines of Tradition Laboratory Life Desks versus Machines History and Construction Take from Science the Idea of Science? 4. Pandora and the History of Modernity Pandora Years The Pasteur Project "Give me a laboratory" Sociology and Bacteriology 5. Of Actants, Forces, and Things Actors and Actants The Politics of Knowledge Irreductionism Interlude with Comte A History of Things 6. Science and Action An Anthropology of Science In the Hinterland of the Texts Great Divides, Large Networks From "Immutable Mobiles" to "Centres of Calculation" Media Studies 7. Questions Concerning Technology The Exegesis of Modernity The Turn to Technology Have We Never Been Post-Modern? Technology - A Mode of Existence The Agonistic Field Strikes Back The Crisis of the Networks 8. The Coming Parliament Assembling Rejoicing Judging Walking Liquefying Summarizing Conclusion Notes Appendix Acknowledgements Bibliography Timeline

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Book SynopsisThis volume designates a shift within posthumanistic media studies, that dissolves the concept of media into a network of operations, that reproduce, process and reflect the distinctions that are fundamental for a given culture, e.g. the anthropological difference, the distinctions between natural object and cultural sign, noise and information, eye and gaze.Trade Review"Cultural Techniques displays a stunning amount of historical knowledge, exploring texts and technological innovations that fall into fields such as the history of science, art history, architecture, cultural anthropology, ethnology, literary studies, and philosophy... Highly important." -- -Edgar Landgraf Bowling Green State University "Siegert's case studies suggest that human being (Dasein) articulates itself through a strife inherent in the play of ontological difference. This strife demands the construction of distinctions that produce human identity and cultural differences. Siegert assigns the name 'cultural techniques' to this production and maintenance of difference... Cultural Techniques suggests that every technical advance consolidates and reproduces new ensembles of cultural difference. Here, life itself is lodged within a system of differences that defy resolution and remain perpetually open to strategic redistribution." -Bernard Dionysius Geoghegan, Paragraph "An excellent collection of essays from one of the most widely known and respected scholars of media, media theory, and cultural techniques working in Germany. The scholarship is erudite, sophisticated, and impressively wide-ranging." -- -Michael Wutz Weber State University "Siegert's idea of cultural techniques extents the definition of media almost well beyond even its broadest common interpretations." -Digital PassageTable of ContentsAcknowledgments 000 Translator's Note 000 Introduction: Cultural techniques, or, The end of the intellectual postwar in German media theory 1. Cacography or Communication? Cultural techniques of sign-signal-distinction 2. Eating Animals-Eating God-Eating Man: Variations on the Last Supper, or, The cultural techniques of communion 3. Parletres: The cultural techniques of anthropological difference 4. Medusas of the western Pacific: The cultural techniques of seafaring 5. Pasajeros a Indias: Registers and biographical writing as cultural techniques of subject constitution (Spain, 16th century) 6. (Not) in Place: The grid, or, cultural techniques of ruling spaces 7. White spots and hearts of darkness: Drafting, projecting and designing as cultural techniques 8. Waterlines: Striated and smooth spaces as techniques of ship design 9. Figures of self-reference: A media genealogy of the trompe-l'Doeil in 17th-century Dutch still life 10. Door Logic, or, The materiality of the symbolic: From cultural techniques to cybernetic machines Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisA history of the concept of orality (that is, the creation and transmission of literary works without the use of writing), this book shows awareness of this medium emerging from the encounter of many literary and scientific developments (romanticism, post-symbolism, structuralism; physiology, psychology, the study of expression, anthropology; phonography, cinema).Trade Review"Only Haun Saussy-with his historical range, theoretical breadth, and fine close-reading-could have pulled off this brilliant comparative history of 'the perturbation caused by the idea of oral literature.' The disciplinary range of this dazzling scholarly performance takes us from linguistics and philology to ethnography and religious studies, from physiology and psychiatry to the history of graphic and sound technologies. Be prepared to marvel-and learn." -- -Linda Hutcheon University Professor Emeritus of English and Comparative Literature, University of TorontoTable of ContentsPreface Introduction: Weighing Hearsay 1. Poetry Without Poems or Poets "Two or Three Hundred Rhythmic Formulae Festivals of Rhythm The Oral Style Formula as System Langue, Parole, and Constraint 2. Writing as One Form of Notation The Epic Cyborg "Word for Word" Stitches in Time 3. Autography The Inscribing Ear "Speech is a Movement" The Patois of Parnassus A Difference of Fifteen Cycles 4. The Human Gramophone "Errores Modernistarum" The Gospel of Movement A Bone Gallery "Four Obscure Jews" Gallo-Galilean Civilization 5. Embodiment and Inscription Materials Science Techniques of the Body Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisA history of the concept of orality (that is, the creation and transmission of literary works without the use of writing), this book shows awareness of this medium emerging from the encounter of many literary and scientific developments (romanticism, post-symbolism, structuralism; physiology, psychology, the study of expression, anthropology; phonography, cinema).Trade Review"Only Haun Saussy-with his historical range, theoretical breadth, and fine close-reading-could have pulled off this brilliant comparative history of 'the perturbation caused by the idea of oral literature.' The disciplinary range of this dazzling scholarly performance takes us from linguistics and philology to ethnography and religious studies, from physiology and psychiatry to the history of graphic and sound technologies. Be prepared to marvel-and learn." -- -Linda Hutcheon University Professor Emeritus of English and Comparative Literature, University of TorontoTable of ContentsPreface Introduction: Weighing Hearsay 1. Poetry Without Poems or Poets "Two or Three Hundred Rhythmic Formulae Festivals of Rhythm The Oral Style Formula as System Langue, Parole, and Constraint 2. Writing as One Form of Notation The Epic Cyborg "Word for Word" Stitches in Time 3. Autography The Inscribing Ear "Speech is a Movement" The Patois of Parnassus A Difference of Fifteen Cycles 4. The Human Gramophone "Errores Modernistarum" The Gospel of Movement A Bone Gallery "Four Obscure Jews" Gallo-Galilean Civilization 5. Embodiment and Inscription Materials Science Techniques of the Body Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisDisappointment responds to recent calls to imaginatively and creatively theorize an otherwise by showing how collaboration between an anthropologist and a political movement of marginalized peoples â the anti-drug war movement â can disclose new possibilities for being and acting politically.Trade Review"It is an extremely rare occurrence for a book to come along that truly breaks open new possibilities for thinking. This is one of those books. In dialogue with philosophy, political theory, critical theory, and anthropology, Disappointment illuminates pathways for creatively thinking through the necessary intertwinings of ontology, ethics, and politics in an effort to critically diagnose and respond to "the overwhelming disappointment" that characterizes a world that is no longer bearable." -- -C. Jason Throop University of California, Los Angeles "A clear and powerful rethinking of the concept of the political grounded in the world of situations rather than the subject of enunciations, Disappointment announces the arrival of a major new figure in the ontological turn in anthropology." -- -Elizabeth Povinelli Columbia UniversityTable of ContentsIntroduction 1 - The Effective History of Rights 2 – Progress (Or, the repetition of differential sameness) 3 – Worlds and Situations 4 – An Ethics of Dwelling 5 – World-building and Attunement Epilogue – Critical Hermeneutics

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Book SynopsisThis book describes new affective and material modes of print media consumption that emerged in the nineteenth century, when ephemeral printed material and objects became part of everyday modern life. It offers a history of our own moment of digital absorption, information addiction, and social media obsession.Table of ContentsIntroduction: From Paper to Pixel 1. Temperate Media: Ephemera and Performance in the Making of Mass Culture 2. Tobacco Papers, Holmes’ Pipe, and Information Addiction 3. Ink, Mass Culture, and the Unconscious 4. “Dreaming True”: Playback, Immediacy, and “Du Maurierness" 5. “A Form of Reverie, A Malady of Dreaming: Dorian Gray and Mass Culture” Conclusion: Unknown Publics Acknowledgments Notes Index

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