New Books in Anthropology
This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network, an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode, scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. The network offers over 150 channels and more than 28,000 episodes. Listeners can explore the full catalog on the New Books Network website.
Episodes
Tom Hulme, "Belfastmen: An Intimate History of Life Before Gay Liberation" (Cornell UP, 2026)
Professor Tom Hulme's second book reconstructs the erotic and romantic lives of queer men in Belfast across roughly seventy years, from the recriminalisation of sex between men in the 1880s to the emergence of a mainstream public debate about homosexuality in the 1950s. It follows men cruising the city centre, reading and passing around homosexual novels, forging relationships across the lines of
John Charles Simon and Jennalee Donian, "Understanding Laughter and Humor: Why We Laugh, Why We Don’t, and Why It Matters" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2026)
In John Charles Simon and Jennalee Donian’s Understanding Laughter and Humor: Why We Laugh, Why We Don’t, and Why It Matters (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025), the authors put forward a comprehensive new theoretical approach to understanding laughter and the humour we use to inspire it. Applying an evolutionary and biological lens to these complex and universal human behaviours, the book distinguishes it
Francesca Sbardella, "Inhabiting Silence: An Anthropologist in the Cloister" (Berghahn Books, 2025)
Monasteries are typically characterized by physical and symbolic limitations on access as they are usually known through written texts and accounts by nuns who live in that world but do not allow others to have access. This has often resulted in research based on indirect sources. Inhabiting Silence: An Anthropologist in the Cloister (Berghahn Books, 2025) is the result of observant
Janaka Jayawickrama and Jerome Wright, "Under the Gaze of Global Mental Health: A Critical Reflection" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025)
What went wrong with global mental health?
Under the Gaze of Global Mental Health: A Critical Reflection (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025) critically examines how the globalisation of mental health through the dominant medical model has created barriers to understanding and responding to distress with reference to cases from Malawi and Sri Lanka. Its authors argue that mental health must be un
Matthew J. Wolf-Meyer et al eds., "Mapping Medical Anthropology for the Twenty-First Century" (Rutgers UP, 2026)
What does medical anthropology look like in the twenty-first century?
That is the central question of Mapping Medical Anthropology for the Twenty-First Century, a new edited volume by Matthew J. Wolf-Meyer, Junko Kitanaka and Eugene Raikhel, published by Rutgers University Press in 2026.
Rather than simply offering an overview of the field, the book invites us to rethink where medical anth
Relative Strangers: Romani Kinship and Palestinian Difference
Examining how memory, intergenerational transmission, and kinship work together, Relative Strangers (U Toronto Press, 2024) sheds light on Romani life in Palestine. Arpan Roy presents an ethnographic portrait of Dom Romani communities living between Palestine and Jordan, zooming in on everyday life in working-class neighborhoods, and under conditions of perpetual war and instability
Piergiorgio Di Giminiani, "Alterhumanism: Becoming Human on a Conservation Frontier" (U Arizona Press, 2025)
In the Anthropocene, a question has become increasingly urgent: What
does it mean to be human? Set against the backdrop of southern Chile’s
conservation frontier, Alterhumanism: Becoming Human on a Conservation Frontier (University of Arizona Press, 2025)
invites us to recognize the centrality of the human condition in the
face of an increasingly uncertain world and imagine future forms of
coe
Chika Watanabe, "Play to Survive: Disaster Preparedness Along the Ring of Fire" (Stanford UP, 2026)
We live in a fragile world. This much is evident as stories abound of
natural disasters that wipe out communities in an instant. How can we
survive the future on such a planet, amid intensifying climate change?
This question is particularly poignant along the Ring of Fire, a
tectonic belt in the Pacific region that routinely faces some of the
most devastating disasters in the world. Based on
Sarah M. Rios, "Diseases Have No Eyes: Valley Fever and Environmental Health Justice" (Temple UP, 2026)
Diseases Have No Eyes: Valley Fever and Environmental Health Justice (Temple University Press, 2026) investigates
how communities in Central Valley, California deal with Valley Fever, a
painful illness caused by a soil fungus. The airborne disease’s
symptoms can last from two months to a patient’s lifetime and may be
fatal. Nearly a
third of the national cases are reported in California, wher
Linguistic Unease in Healthcare
In this episode of the Language on the Move Podcast, Brynn Quick chats with Dr. Nicole Marinaro, a sociolinguist and postdoctoral researcher at the University of Hamburg. Her work explores how language policies shape people's experiences of accessing healthcare and other public services. Dr. Marinaro’s research focuses on linguistic justice, examining how communicatio
Elizabeth Anne Davis, "Artifactual: Forensic and Documentary Knowing" (Duke UP, 2023)
In Artifactual: Forensic and Documentary Knowing (Duke University Press,
2023), Elizabeth Anne Davis explores how Cypriot researchers,
scientists, activists, and artists process and reckon with civil and
state violence that led to the enduring division of the island, using
forensic and documentary materials to retell and recontextualize
conflicts between and within the Greek-Cypriot
Karin Barber, "Much Matter in a Penny Paper: Early Yoruba Print Culture in Lagos, 1910–1930" (Ohio UP, 2026)
Much Matter in a Penny Paper: Early Yoruba Print Culture in Lagos,1910-1930 (Ohio UP, 2026) is a survey of the history and development of Yoruba print culture in Lagos, Nigeria, from the 19th to the early 20th century. The book details the emergence of the Yoruba language press, its themes, and its distinction from the English-language press. The influence of both missionary and secular
An Honest Death: Life's End and Humanist Funerals with Matthew Engelke
A fascinating, behind-the-scenes look at non-religious funerals in contemporary London, An Honest Death: Life's End and Humanist Funerals (Princeton UP, 2026) is an intimate and moving ethnographic account of funerals for people who don’t believe in God or an afterlife. Focusing on secular funeral celebrants of the British Humanist Association (now called Humanists UK), the boo
Ashanté M. Reese, "Gather: Black Food, Nourishment, and the Art of Togetherness" (W. W. Norton, 2026)
Food justice is defined as the understanding that our food system is unequal and that something needs to be done about it. But how can we create a world where everyone has enough? What does it mean to truly nourish ourselves and our communities?
In Gather: Black Food, Nourishment, and the Art of Togetherness (Norton, 2026), anthropologist Ashanté M. Reese argues for a vibrant new vision
A Cure for Loneliness: On Homecoming with Ian Marcus Corbin
Americans are more isolated, polarized, and depressed than ever in recent memory, and yet many citizens share a deep desire for community and friendship across political lines and in new creative ways. How may we bridge that gap? To help answer that most pressing question, in Episode 2 of Season 6, I have as our guest the philosopher, essayist, and author, Ian Marcus Corbin.
A graduate of Ya
Ting Hui Lau, "Decolonial Endurance: Lisu Worldmaking Against Chinese Settler Colonialism" (Stanford UP, 2026)
A series of questions have been sparked by the indigenous urgency of
the moment: What does it mean to live through a world coming undone? How
do people carry on amid rupture, loss, and grief? Decolonial Endurance: Lisu Worldmaking Against Chinese Settler Colonialism (Stanford University Press, 2026) explores
these questions through the turbulent lives of Indigenous Lisu
subsistence f
Máximo Badaró, "Pedagogies of Value: Marketing Foreign Goods in China" (Berghahn, 2026)
Pedagogies of Value: Marketing Foreign Goods in China (Berghahn,
2026) by Dr. Máximo Badaró explores how China is reshaping global
hierarchies of worth. Through ethnographic research among marketers,
consultants, and brokers who promote foreign goods in Shanghai, Beijing,
and beyond, this book investigates how value is taught, contested, and
transformed in everyday encounters. From luxury bra
Sophie Chao, "Land of Famished Beings: West Papuan Theories of Hunger" (Duke UP, 2025)
In Land of Famished Beings: West Papuan Theories of Hunger (Duke UP, 2025), Sophie Chao examines how Indigenous Marind communities understand and theorize hunger in lowland West Papua, a place where industrial plantation expansion and settler-colonial violence are radically reconfiguring ecologies, socialities, and identities. Instead of seeing hunger as an individual, biophysical state
Margaret E. Farrar and Adam Kaul, "Becoming Utopia: History, Heritage, and Sustainability in the American Midwest" (U Nebraska Press, 2026)
Becoming Utopia: History, Heritage, and Sustainability in the American Midwest (U Nebraska Press, 2026) centers on the tiny community of Bishop Hill, Illinois, whose marketing materials call it “Utopia on the Prairie,” home to a radical communal religious sect that emigrated from Sweden in the 1840s. Through rich textual and ethnographic analyses, Dr. Margaret E. Farrar and Dr. Adam Kaul
Dalit Studies with Ramnarayan Rawat, K. Satyanarayana and Sanal Mohan
This episode featured a conversation with Ramnarayan Rawat, K. Satyanarayana, and Sanal Mohan, three scholars in the burgeoning field of Dalit Studies. We began with the significance of the 1990s as a point of departure for new work in this field and segued to the interventions made by their two edited volumes published in 2016 and 2025. We discussed the paths opened up by earlier radical historio
Marisa Karyl Franz, "Near and Desired Things: Shamanism in Late Imperial Local Siberian Museums" (Cornell UP, 2026)
Near and Desired Things: Shamanism in Late Imperial Local Siberian Museums (Cornell University Press, 2026) reveals nineteenth-century Siberian museums, built on Indigenous land and increasingly populated by political exiles, as active sites of ethnographic knowledge-making and centers of scientific research, regional identity, and colonial authority. Rather than collecting from distant colon
Beyond Free Speech: Why AI Governance Demands Freedom of Thought
Are we driving our technology, or is it starting to drive us? In this thought-provoking conversation, Eli Karetny sits down with researcher and author Eduardo Albrecht to explore the invisible, rapidly encroaching frontier of AI governance and data surveillance.Moving far beyond traditional debates about data privacy, Albrecht warns of a near future where the state and corporate partners bypass hu
Ka-ming Wu, "Infrastructural Urbanism in Contemporary China: Volunteering, Infrastructures and Civic Imaginations" (Leiden UP, 2026)
Infrastructural Urbanism in Contemporary China: Volunteering, Infrastructures and Civic Imaginations (Leiden University Press, 2026) examines
how Chinese citizens negotiate their everyday experiences with urban
spaces, improved city infrastructure, and an increasingly tight
surveillance regime through volunteering. This book asks how citizens
connect to city spaces where facilities f
The Microbiopolitics of Novel Foods
What role do microbes play in aquaponic farming and cultivated meat production, and how might such novel food technologies impact microbiomes? In this episode, Ishita Dey of Gastronomica hosts Lukáš Senft, Tereza Stöckelová, and Varvara Borisova in a conversation about their new article, “The Microbiopolitics of Novel Foods: The Pro- and Antibiotic Implications of Cultivated Meat and Aqu
Magdalena E. Stawkowski, "Atomic Collective: Radioactive Life in Kazakhstan" (U Toronto Press, 2025)
In the aftermath of the Soviet Union's collapse, Kazakhstan inherited the remnants of one of the world's most contaminated landscapes: the Semipalatinsk Test Site, known locally as the Polygon. Resigned to dispossession, residents have chosen to remain on the abandoned nuclear test site, despite the isolation and the radioactive environment, rather than face marginalization or the rigors of a neol
Katie Barclay, "The Kiss: A History of Passion and Power" (Reaktion Books, 2025)
The Kiss: A History of Passion and Power (Reaktion, 2026) by Professor Katie Barclay tells the surprising history of our most intimate gesture: the kiss. Richly illustrated, it explores a millennium of kisses, asking how and why the kiss has retained its power over the centuries, and what it might mean today. From the furtive kisses of fated lovers Heloise and Abelard to The Godfather’s ‘kiss of d
Isabel Heger-Laube, "China’s Landless Peasants and the Role of State-led Rural Urbanization: Narratives, Meaning Making, and the Puzzle of Social Stability" (Würzberg UP, 2025)
As part and parcel of China’s compressed modernization, processes of
state-led rural urbanization through land expropriation and
rural-to-urban relocation have been transforming rural Chinese people’s
lives in unprecedented ways. This has led to different, often adverse
outcomes for the affected populations – China’s “landless peasants” - as
well as to the construction of divergent narratives
David Zeitlyn and Chihab El Khachab eds., "Understanding Social Images: Essays on Visual Methods and Teaching Visual Anthropology" (Berghahn, 2025)
In this episode I discuss the book Understanding Social Images: Essays on Visual Methods and Teaching Anthropology (Berghahn, 2025) with co-editors David Zeitlyn and Chihab El Khachab, a posthumous collection of writings by the late anthropologist Marcus Banks. Banks was a key the figures in development of visual anthropology, but his work remains of continuing relevance. This volume br
Victoria Donovan, "Life in Spite of Everything: Tales from the Ukrainian East" (Daunt Books, 2025)
Life in Spite of Everything: Tales from the Ukrainian East (Daunt Books Publishing, 2025) is
a unique reflection on the much-mythologised Donetsk and Luhansk
regions of the Ukrainian east, the old and recent history of the region
as seen by an esteemed academic multi-disciplinary scholar Victoria
Donovan in her numerous travels to the region prior to the full-scale
invasion. Seen th
Michelle Bigenho and Henry Stobart, "Heritage Fever: Law and Cultural Politics in a Decolonizing State" (Oxford UP, 2025)
The
early twenty-first century ushered in a period of change in Bolivia.
The country welcomed its first Indigenous president, a new constitution,
and a profusion of laws that recognized individual music and dance
expressions as intangible cultural heritage. Using cultural heritage
lawmaking as a window through which to view the de-centered workings of the Indigenous-focused Plurinational Boli
Lily Kelting, "Against Heritage: The Reinvention of Traditional Foods" (UNC Press, 2026)
The rise of “heritage” foods—that is, the reinvention of traditional
foods—has enjoyed a high profile thanks to the oft-praised efforts of
chefs such as Sean Brock and René Redzepi. But Lily Kelting observes the
popularity of heritage foods as something more: a global movement in
response to climate catastrophe and the rise of right-wing, populist
movements that center a return to the past as
Andrew Flachs, "Feeding the World as If People Mattered: How Small Farms Produce Value Beyond Yields" (U Arizona Press, 2026)
Backyard gardens flush with cucumbers, tomatoes, and
peppers where bees buzz and chickens scratch. Beyond, a forest filled
with blackberries and jewelweed. Inspired by childhood memories of his
grandmother’s overflowing backyard garden, author Andrew Flachs has
embarked on a multi-continent, decades-long look at agriculture and its
value.
The dominant view of agriculture has focused only on
Caste as a Material Question with Rahul Sonpimple
This episode featured a conversation with Rahul Sonpimple, founder of the All-India Independent Scheduled Castes Association. Our conversation began with Rahul’s conception of Indian history and the place of anti-caste struggle within it. We delved further into Rahul’s own understanding of “anti-caste” as deeply rooted in Ambedkar’s own argument about the necessity of force in emancipatory social
Elana Resnick, "Refusing Sustainability: Race and Environmentalism in a Changing Europe" (Stanford UP, 2025)
Sustainability has become a touchstone for development worldwide,
promising an antidote to environmental degradation and capitalism's
excess: waste. Refusing Sustainability: Race and Environmentalism in a Changing Europe (Stanford University Press, 2025)
presents a fundamentally different account of sustainability and waste
itself by uncovering the intersections of international environmental
Recall This Book x The Caste Pod: a Crossover episode with Ajantha Subramanian
In the spirit of Hannah Arendt's natality principle (that new things are always and should always be being born, each one unique and endowed with limitless potential) we at RTB love it when a new podcast appears. Especially one as thoughtful and original as The Caste Pod, which assembles scholars and activists to make sense of what caste is, how it's experienced and how it has travelled globa
Cécile Bishop, "Forms of Blackness: Race and Visibility in the French-Speaking World" (Duke UP, 2026)
What does Blackness look like? In Forms of Blackness: Race and Visibility in the French-Speaking World (Duke University Press, 2026),
Cécile Bishop argues that this seemingly simple question has no
straightforward answer. Instead of treating race as something
immediately visible, she explores how Blackness emerges through the
interplay of perception, language, and history.
A central theme of
Meena Khandelwal, "Cookstove Chronicles: Social Life of a Women's Technology in India" (U Arizona Press, 2026)
Stove
improvers have been designing and promoting “clean” or “efficient”
biomass cookstoves in India since the 1940s and have been frustrated to
find their carefully engineered stoves abandoned in trash heaps or
repurposed as storage bins, while the traditional mud chulha retains a
central place in the kitchen. Why do so many Indian women continue to
use wood-burning, smoke-spewing stoves wh
Jay Szpilka, "BDSM Practices in Contemporary Poland: Barbed Wire Floggings, Rope Orgasms, and the Problem with Desire" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025)
In BDSM Practices in Poland: Barbed Wire Floggings, Rope Orgasms, and the Problem with Desire
(Palgrave Macmillan, 2025), cultural anthropologist and cultural
studies scholar Jay Szpilka analyzes the way that BDSM is practiced in
contemporary Poland. Based on extensive field research, she asks what
social, cultural, and political conditions are necessary for BDSM to be possible to practice
in
Arpan Roy, "Relative Strangers: Romani Kinship and Palestinian Difference" (U Toronto Press, 2025)
Examining how memory, intergenerational transmission, and kinship work together, Relative Strangers: Romani Kinship and Palestinian Difference (U Toronto Press, 2025) sheds light on Romani life in Palestine. Arpan Roy presents an ethnographic portrait of Dom Romani communities living between Palestine and Jordan, zooming in on everyday life in working-class neighborhoods, and under conditions of
Chiara Formichi, "Domestic Nationalism: Muslim Women, Health, and Modernity in Indonesia" (Stanford UP, 2025)
In her most recent publication, Domestic Nationalism: Muslim Women, Health, and Modernity in Indonesia (Stanford UP, 2025), Chiara Formichi argues that Muslim women in Java and Sumatra, from the late 1910s to the 1950s, were central to Indonesia's progress as guardians and promoters of health and piety through gendered activities of care work. While sidelined in the Dutch colonial project of hygie
Susannah Crockford, "A Perturbed System: Religion and Climate Change from the End of a World" (U Chicago Press, 2026)
Our ecological system is disturbed, and with it, every other system we’ve built to inhabit it. We do not face inevitable destruction, yet many of us cannot conceive of climate change as anything but the end of the world, an apocalypse with all its biblical trappings. Why?
In A Perturbed System: Religion and Climate Change from the End of a World, anthropologist Susannah Crockford argues that we
Caste and Music with T.M. Krishna
This episode features a conversation with Carnatic vocalist, T.M. Krishna, who is also the author of two books on this musical tradition. We began with his first book’s account of the modernization of Carnatic music through a set of social, technical, and spatial processes that transformed it from a more socially diverse practice into a predominantly Brahmin performative genre. We moved on to disc
Gina M. Pérez, "Sanctuary People: Faith-Based Organizing in Latina/o Communities" (NYU Press, 2024)
In her latest book, Sanctuary People: Faith Based Organizing in Latina/o Communities (NYU Press, 2024), Dr. Gina Perez explores sanctuary practices in Ohio, locating them in broader local and national efforts to provide refuge and care in the face of the challenges facing Latina/o communities in a moment of increased surveillance, migrant detention, displacement, and economic and social marginaliz
Marta Dominguez Diaz, "Tunisia's Andalusians: The Cultural Identity of a North African Minority" (Edinburgh UP, 2025)
Tunisia’s Andalusians: The Cultural Identity of a North African Minority (Edinburgh UP, 2025) tells the captivating story of those Andalusians, descendants of Muslims expelled from Spain in the seventeenth century, who sought refuge in Tunisia. Rather than simply replicating Iberian traditions, Andalusian culture in Tunisia stands as a vibrant and evolving phenomenon, shaped by complex dynamics of
Carola E. Lorea, "Communities of Sound: Religion, Displacement, and Caste in the Bay of Bengal" (Wesleyan UP, 2026)
Communities of Sound: Religion, Displacement, and Caste in the Bay of Bengal (Wesleyan University Press, 2026) brings
together insights from religion, anthropology, sound, and migration
studies to explore the sonic traces of untouchability and forced
migration across the Bay of Bengal. Based on an immersive, multi-sited
ethnography with Matua devotees—a low-caste, Bengali-speaking Dalit
reli
Hidden Heretics: Jewish Doubt in the Digital Age
In her recent publication, Hidden Heretics: Jewish Doubt in the Digital Age, scholar Ayala Fader tells the fascinating, often heart-wrenching stories of married ultra-Orthodox Jewish men and women in twenty-first-century New York who lead “double lives” in order to protect those they love. Drawing on five years of fieldwork with those living double lives and the rabbis, life coaches, and religious
Alena Ledeneva, "Russian Pendulum: Paradoxes, Practices and Patterns" (UCL Press, 2026)
Alena Ledeneva is Professor of Politics and Society at the
University College London and a founder of the Global Informality
Project. Her research focuses on informal practices, and she has written
several Russia-focused books, including Russia’s Economy of Favours, How Russia Really Works and Can Russia Modernise. The Global Informality has also published 3 volumes of its Global Encyclopaedia
Marielle Risse, "Ethnographic Reflections on Marriage in Dhofar, Oman" (Anthem Press, 2026)
In this episode of the New Books Network, we explore Ethnographic Reflections on Marriage in Dhofar, Oman (Anthem Press, 2026),
with anthropologist Dr Marielle Risse. Drawing on nearly two decades of
ethnographic fieldwork, Dr Risse offers a nuanced examination of
marriage practices among Sunni Muslim communities in southern Oman,
challenging many of the assumptions that often underpin Wester
Karl Whittington, "Queer Making: On Artists and Desire in Medieval Europe" (Pennsylvania State UP, 2025)
Karl Whittington joins Jana Byars to talk about his new book, Queer Making: On Artists and Desire in Medieval Europe (Pennsylvania State University Press,
2025). What role does desire play in the making of art objects? Art
historians typically answer this question by referring to historical
evidence about an artist's sexual identity or to particular kinds of
imagery. But what about anonymous a
John Longhurst, "Can Robots Love God and Be Saved? A Journalist Reports on Faith" (CMU Press, 2024)
One of the things that stood out in my conversation with John Longhurst about his book Can Robots Love God and Be Saved? A Journalist Reports on Faith (CMU Press, 2024) was his seriousness about journalism itself. Longhurst understands the journalist's vocation not as providing
definitive answers but as asking good questions, paying close
attention, and engaging thoughtfully with the people and
Jeffrey Hoelle, "Cultivated: Plants, Hair, and the Aesthetic of Control" (Yale UP, 2026)
An exploration of the concept of cultivation, as conducted on both
the land and the body, which expands our understanding of it as
practice, aesthetic, and ideology.
In Cultivated: Plants, Hair, and the Aesthetic of Control (Yale University Press, 2026),
Jeffrey Hoelle traces the imprint of cultivation across the naturally
growing covers of the land and body—plants and hair. The book builds
Patrick Brodie, "Wild Tides: Media Infrastructure and Financial Crisis in Ireland" (Duke UP, 2026)
In Wild Tides: Media Infrastructure and Financial Crisis in Ireland (Duke University Press, 2026),
Patrick Brodie maps the shifting fortunes of the Irish economy before
the 2008 financial crisis up to 2020, outlining how the Irish state
moved from rampant and irresponsible financialized development to
incentivizing private media infrastructure and policy as instruments for
economic recovery.
Mardi Reardon-Smith, "Making Do: Conservation Ethics and Ecological Care in Australia" (Stanford UP, 2025)
Modern environmentalism often frames conservation as moral, humans damage nature, and conservation protects it. But Mardi Reardon-Smith’s Making Do: Conservation Ethics and Ecological Care in Australia, published by Stanford University Press in 2025, dismantles that comforting narrative and replaces it with something far more complex and candid.
Set on the Cape York Peninsula, the book explores h
Ladan Rahbari and Olga Burlyuk eds., "From the Margins: Migrant Academics’ Narratives of Precarity" (Open Book Publishers, 2026)
In this episode of the New Books Network, I spoke with Dr Olga Burlyuk and Dr Ladan Rahbari about their new edited volume, From the Margins: Migrant Academics’ Narratives of Precarity (Open Book Publishers, 2026). The book is open access.
As universities promote internationalisation while maintaining labour systems that leave many migrant scholars vulnerable, this volume builds on the editors’ 20
Eileen Otis, "Walmart: Made in China" (Stanford UP, 2026)
Walmart: Made in China
(Stanford University Press, 2026) by Dr. Eileen Otis tells the story of
Walmart's expansion in China, making the case that it is the story of a
major shift in the structure of global capitalism. Walmart, argues Dr.
Otis, is a leading actor in the rise of merchant capitalism, wherein the
role of the merchant has changed from operating at the whim of industrialists, to le
Romani Grassroots Language Learning
In this episode of the Language on the Move Podcast, Emily Pacheco speaks with Dr Santiago Betancor Falcón (University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain) about his 2025 paper, Autonomous language learning as political activism: Roma autodidacts as catalysts of the nascent Romani language revitalisation movement in Spain. The conversation focuses on minoritised languages, autonomous language lea
Dougald O’Reilly, "Empires of the Southern Ocean: Early Civilizations of Mainland and Insular Southeast Asia" (Bloomsbury Academic, 2026)
From about the middle of the first millennium of the Common Era through to the fifteenth century, Southeast Asian societies underwent a political transformation that produced the first, early states that were the forerunners of the countries we know today as Myanmar, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam. Dougald O’Reilly’s Empires of the Southern Ocean: Early Civilizations of Mainland and In
Cultural Competence Isn’t One-Size-Fits-All: Talking culturally responsive teaching with Dr Remy Low
In this episode, we are delighted to be joined by educator and researcher Associate Professor Remy Low to explore what cultural competence and culturally responsive teaching looks like in the classroom. He is committed to furthering culturally responsive education across schools, higher education, arts and cultural institutions, as well as community organisations. As a previous high school teacher
Christos Lynteris, "How Plague Got Rats: Mastering a Zoonotic Pandemic" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2026)
Today, rats are nearly synonymous with plague, but this association is surprisingly recent. For centuries, plague devastated populations without being linked to animals. So how did the rat become the symbol of one of history's deadliest diseases? In How Plague Got Rats: Mastering a Zoonotic Pandemic (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2026), Professor Christos Lynteris unravels this story by focusi
“You Sound So Australian”: From Being Read to Rewriting the Room with guest Zindzi Okenyo
Welcome to the first episode of The Cultural Competence Collective podcast! For our first episode, we are joined by the multi-talented actress, musician and director, Zindzi Okenyo! You may recognise her from your TV screen on shows like Fisk, Wakefield and Play School, on stage from her multiple shows with Sydney Theatre Company or maybe you’ve heard her hits like ‘A Woman’s World’ as a solo art
Radio ReOrient 14:9: Racializing the Ummah, with Rhea Rahman, hosted by Saeed Khan and Claudia Radiven
In this episode, Claudia Radiven and Saeed Khan were in conversation with Rhea Rahman to discuss her new book ‘Racializing the Ummah - Muslim Humanitarians: Beyond Black, Brown and White’. Through this, the discussion drew on issues of ‘doing good’, racial capitalism and the struggles faced by Islamic NGOs in a time when Islamophobia is on the rise. Rhea Rahman is an assistant professor of anthrop
Yiddish Ethnography and An-ski
Sh. An-ski (Shloyme-Zanvl Rappoport, 1863-1920) was a writer in Russian and Yiddish, a revolutionary, a wartime relief worker, and an ethnographer who studied the Jews of the Russian Empire. During his 1911-1914 expeditions to shtetls in Ukraine—he would report—he and his co-workers took 1000 photographs, recorded 1000 Yiddish songs and 1500 stories, and purchased 400 objects for a Jewish museum.
Patrick S. D. McCartney, "Sanskrit-Speaking' Villages, Linguistic Utopias and the Metaphysics of Development" (Routledge, 2026)
Sanskrit-Speaking' Villages, Linguistic Utopias and the Metaphysics of Development (Routledge, 2026) is a recollection of the McCartney's journey across 'Sanskritland, ' which is the term coined to refer to the utopian landscape within which the 'Language of the Gods' is thought to be spoken. There are three destinations on the author's journey. This study sheds light on how, why, and where Sanskr
Daniela Soto-Hernández, "Lithium Extraction in Chile: Ontological, Ecological and Economic Dimensions" (Routledge, 2025)
Lithium Extraction in Chile: Ontological, Ecological and Economic Dimensions (Routledge, 2025) is a new book from Dr Daniela Soto-Hernández, a Social Anthropologist currently working as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Sussex. In this book, published with Routledge, Dr Soto-Hernández uses ethnographic methods during her intensive fieldwork in Chile, specifically in and around the Ata
Radio ReOrient 14:8: Dutch Islamophobia and Muslim Exceptionalism, with Martijn de Koning, hosted by Marchella Ward and Amina Easat-Daas
In this episode Chella Ward and Amina Easat-Daas spoke with Dr Martijn de Koning about the nature of Islamophobia in the Netherlands and how this sits in relation to common perceptions about Dutch society as a liberal and tolerant society and the Islamophobic realities of the Netherlands. De Koning also spoke at length of the recent NTA affair in the Netherlands, the exceptionalising of surveillin
Erica Bornstein, "A Revolution of Rules: The Regulatory Reform of India's Nonprofit Sector" (Stanford UP, 2025)
Erica Bornstein, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Oregon (and Divisional Associate Dean), has a new book that delves into the regulatory reforms within the nonprofit sector in India. These reforms transpired over more than a decade, and Bornstein spent extended time developing this ethnographic study of not only the changes, but the institutional structures that manage nonprofit orga
George Baylon Radics, "Emotional Filipinos: The American Myth of the 'Lazy Native' and Islamic Separatism in the Philippines" (U Georgia Press, 2026)
In the first half of the twentieth century, the United States attempted to build a colony in the Philippines in its own image—one fraught with racist notions of what it means to be civilized, developed, and worthy of self-rule. These imported notions of race and modernity left a profound imprint on the nation. More recently, we have seen a menacing rise of Islamic "terrorism," political polarizat
Georgia C. Ennis, "Rainforest Radio: Language Reclamation and Community Media in the Ecuadorian Amazon" (U Arizona Press, 2025)
In Rainforest Radio: Language Reclamation and Community Media in the Ecuadorian Amazon (U Arizona Press, 2025), Dr. Georgia C. Ennis provides a comprehensive ethnographic exploration of Amazonian Kichwa community media, offering a unique look at how Indigenous broadcast and performance media facilitate linguistic and cultural reclamation in the Ecuadorian Amazon.
This work offers a critical analy
Mengqi Wang, "Anxious Homes: Inflexible Demand and China's Housing Market" (Cornell UP, 2026)
Anxious Homes: Inflexible Demand and China's Housing Market (Cornell UP, 2026) is a study of the power that shapes the forms of the homes Chinese citizens strive for and the possible paths they may take to realize their home ownership dreams. Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork, Mengqi Wang discusses how the Chinese real estate industry functions in the everyday, welding aspirational middle-
Alice von Bieberstein, "Temptations in Ruin: Sovereign Accumulation and the Making of Post-Genocide Turkey" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2025)
Temptations in Ruin: Sovereign Accumulation and the Making of Post-Genocide Turkey (U Pennsylvania Press, 2025) examines the political-economic afterlife of the Armenian genocide in present-day Turkey, focusing on the region of Muş (Moush). Anthropologist Alice von Bieberstein explores how the 1915 genocide and dispossession of Armenians shaped property regimes, citizenship, and economic logics
Radio ReOrient S14:7: Surveilling Muslimness in Denmark, with Amani Hassani, hosted by Claudia Radiven and Amina Easat-Daas
In this episode hosts Claudia Radiven and Amina Easat-Daas were joined by Amani Hassani, to discuss her most recent work around Islamophobia and Muslimness in Denmark. Hassani discussed Danish colonial histories and the surveilling nature of the Danish welfare state, and how these are employed to construct a narrative of Danish benevolence while simultaneously marking Muslims in Denmark as ‘other’
Caste and Urbanization with Malini Ranganathan and Juned Shaikh
This episode features a conversation with urban geographer, Malini Ranganathan, and historian, Juned Shaikh, on the centrality of caste to urbanization in India. Through a focus on 20th century Bombay (now Mumbai) and 21st century Bangalore (now Bengaluru), we explored the symbiotic relationship between caste and capitalism manifest in the political economy of urbanization from the heyday of indus
Edith Szanto, "Twelver Shi'i Self-flagellation Rites in Contemporary Syria: Mourning Sayyida Zaynab" (Edinburgh UP, 2025)
Edith Szanto’s Twelver Shi'i Self-Flagellation Rites in Contemporary Syria: Mourning Sayyida Zaynab (Edinburgh UP, 2025) is a striking and deeply immersive ethnographic study that takes the reader into the shrine town of Sayyida Zaynab in Syria. This town was a vibrant center of Shi‘i life, pilgrimage, and healing, especially for Iraqi refugees until the 2011 Syrian uprising. By combining meticulo
Arely M. Zimmerman, "Contentious Citizenship: Salvadoran Activism and Belonging Across Borders" (U Arizona Press, 2026)
Contentious Citizenship: Salvadoran Activism and Belonging Across Borders (U Arizona Press, 2026) reshapes how we understand belonging, identity, and political participation in the context of migration. Drawing on decades of Salvadoran activism from the 1980s solidarity movement to the post–civil war era, Arely M. Zimmerman offers a powerful ethnographic account of how migrants challenge exclusi
Richard Ivan Jobs and Steven Van Wolputte, "In the Land of the Lacandón: A Graphic History of Adventure and Imperialism" (McGill-Queen’s UP, 2025)
In the mid-1930s the amateur French ethnographer and filmmaker Bernard de Colmont ventured into the mountainous state of Chiapas to study the Lacandón people and broadcast their way of life to a curious European public. Considered a “lost tribe,” the Lacandón were thought to be the closest living relatives of the ancient Maya.De Colmont became a celebrity explorer whose adventures generated consid
Vindhya Buthpitiya, "A Volatile Picture: War and the Political Work of Photography in Sri Lanka" (U Washington Press, 2026)
A Volatile Picture: War and the Political Work of Photography in Sri Lanka (U Washington Press, 2026) by Dr. Vindhya Buthpitiya is a groundbreaking ethnography that explores how, in the context of Sri Lanka’s protracted civil war and its turbulent aftermath, photography has become bound to the Tamil political imagination. From state-commissioned images meant to surveil and rebel documentation of a
Elena Foulis, "Embodied Encuentros: Oral History Archives of Latina/o/e Experiences" (Ohio State UP, 2026)
In Embodied Encuentros: Oral History Archives of Latina/o/e Experiences (Ohio State UP, 2026), Elena Foulis offers a practical guide for completing ethical fieldwork in Latina/o/e communities, emphasizing equitable and culturally sustaining practices for gathering oral histories. In her critical decolonial model, Foulis centers the agency of the people within these communities while considering th
Francisco Martínez, "The Future of Hiding: Secrecy, Infrastructure, and Ecological Memory in Estonia's Siberia" (Cornell UP, 2025)
How can lives and things that are rendered invisible be crucial to identity, politics, and the future? Drawing on experimental ethnographic research in northeastern Estonia, this book offers vivid answers.
The Future of Hiding: Secrecy, Infrastructure, and Ecological Memory in Estonia's Siberia (Cornell UP, 2025) analyzes the territorial dimensions of secrecy and how concealment occurs in relatio
Susanna Elm and Kristina Sessa, "War and Community in Late Antiquity" (Cambridge UP, 2026)
Susanna Elm and Kristina Sessa, War and Community in Late Antiquity (Cambridge UP, 2026)
Late Antiquity (ca. 250–600 CE) was a world at war: barbarian migrations, civil wars, raids, and increasingly porous frontiers affected millions of its inhabitants. While military and political historians have long grappled with this history, scholars of late antique society and culture rarely interrogate the
Caste and Race: Ambedkar and King with the Ambedkar King Study Circle
This episode features S. Karthikeyan and S. Subbulakshmi, the Convenor and Secretary of the Ambedkar King Study Circle, an anti-caste organization based in Silicon Valley. Our conversation began with a discussion of the choice of B. R. Ambedkar and Martin Luther King Jr. as the titular heads of the organization, then moved on to a conversation about its membership-based structure, the anti-caste s
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