Curated Collections
War on Palestine
Cultural Anthropology joins the global wave of mourning for the loss of life in Palestine and Israel, and the global condemnation of genocide in Gaza. We join voices from around the world calling for an immediate ceasefire. This... More
Sovereignty
After the words “America” and “United States,” President Donald Trump mentioned sovereignty more than any other topic in his speech to the United Nations General Assembly in September 2017. Trump linked sovereignty to global prosperity,... More
Reclaiming Hope
Has hope become a word that betrays you? In an escalating “war on words” (van Eekelen et al. 2004, 1), has hope bulldozed over our dreams? During the 2008 U.S. presidential election, “hope” became yet another vacuous political slogan... More
Everyday Islam
This collection gathers five articles previously published in Cultural Anthropology, by Hayder Al-Mohammad, Kenneth George, Naveeda Khan, Arzoo Osanloo, and Carolyn Rouse and Janet Hoskins. The collection also includes interviews... More
Affect, Embodiment, and Sense Perception
Recent trends in social theory have placed great importance on affect for both analytic and political reasons, but the term is somewhat vague and ambiguous. For example, it has been described as felt bodily intensity that is:... More
Infrastructure
Infrastructures are the systems that enable circulation of goods, knowledge, meaning, people, and power. In Splintering Urbanism (2001), Stephen Graham and Simon Marvin argue that we can see the role of public... More
Ethnographies of Science
In a 2001 themed issue of Cultural Anthropology, "Anthropology and/in/of Science," editor Daniel Segal noted a scarcity of ethnographically grounded accounts of the practices of scientists. In this collection we aim to... More
Literature, Writing, and Anthropology
What is the work that stories do? Our Curated Collection on literature, writing, and anthropology seeks to address this question by creating a space in which fiction and anthropology converge, collide, and collapse into one another.... More
The Digital Form
Digital technology has been celebrated in recent years for its capacity to foment political change, as evidenced by the role of social media networks in the Arab Spring, and spur development, as indicated by the popularity of information... More
Subaltern Studies
In the preface to the inaugural issue of Subaltern Studies, published in 1982, Indian historian Ranajit Guha called for more academic work on subaltern themes and critiques of elitism. Almost 30 years later, his call has been answered in... More
Cosmopolitanism
Cultural Anthropology is excited to present six essays that it has published in recent years as part of its third virtual issue for 2010 on the theme of Cosmopolitanism. From belly-dancing in contemporary Istanbul to blood donation... More
Business Cultures
In response to the increasing encounters between global commodities and local markets, the recent economic crisis that has affected millions globally, the collapse of major financial institutions, and the escalating volatility of the... More