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
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
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
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
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
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.
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
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
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-
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
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
Justin Bailey, "An Anthropology of Wandering: How Adventure Can Alleviate a Fearful Culture" (2026)
In a culture saturated by speed, safety protocols, and mediated fear, what might we rediscover by walking or hiking slowly into the unknown?
In this episode of the New Books Network, I speak with Justin S. Bailey, author of An Anthropology of Wandering: How Adventure Can Alleviate a Fearful Culture, published by Those Who Wonder Press in 2026. Drawing on his Appalachian Trail journey, Bailey offe
Ida Susser, "The Yellow Vests and the Battle for Democracy: Taking to the Streets of Paris in the 21st Century" (Routledge, 2026)
Written under the shadow of growing authoritarianism in the United States and Europe, this book is an effort to understand resistance movements of the twenty-first century. It foregrounds the Yellow Vests to present an accurate and timely picture of a protest movement that baffled analysts and blurred the boundaries of left and right.
Comprehensively exploring the meaning of “les Gilets Jaunes tr
Mujun Zhou, "The Death and Life of Chinese Civil Society" (U Michigan Press, 2026)
In a society undergoing rapid transformation, how do people engage in debates around a foreign concept and in doing so, pursue contested political futures?
The Death and Life of Chinese Civil Society examines how a group of Chinese intellectual elites referred to as the liberals or ziyou pai edified the civil society project beginning in the 1990s to build an independent space to constrain state
Charlotte Linton, "Dyeing with the Earth: Textiles, Tradition, and Sustainability in Contemporary Japan" (Duke UP, 2025)
The past, present and future of ethical production in fashion
In Dyeing with the Earth, Charlotte Linton explores the intersection of small-scale traditional craft production with contemporary sustainability practices. Focusing on natural textile dyeing on the southern Japanese island of Amami Ōshima, Linton details the complex relationship between preservation practices, resource extraction, and
Indigenous Employment and Cultural Safety: Building Real Pathways with guest Craig Seinor-Davies
*Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people should be aware that this episode may contain the name of deceased persons.*
Podcast description: In the final episode of our first season, we sit down with Craig Seinor-Davies about what it means to create meaningful pathways for marginalised groups across our institutions. Craig is a proud Darug man, and the Indigenous Employment Manager here at the
Berardino Palumbo, "Where Saints Show Respect: Mafia, Modernity, and Rituals of Power" (Berghahn Books, 2026)
Where Saints Show Respect: Mafia, Modernity, and Rituals of Power is an anthropological exploration of how authority is produced not only through violence or secrecy but also through public ritual. Drawing on more than thirty years of ethnographic research in Sicily, Professor Berardino Palumbo turns our attention to saints’ festivals, processions, fireworks, ritual gestures and moments when power
Kasey Jernigan, "Commod Bods: Embodied Heritage, Foodways, and Indigeneity" (U Arizona Press, 2026)
The term "commod bod" is used with humor and affection. It also offers a critical way to describe bodies shaped by long-term reliance on U.S. federal commodity food programs.
In Commod Bods: Embodied Heritage, Foodways, and Indigeneity (University of Arizona Press, 2026), Kasey Jernigan shares her ongoing collaborative research with Choctaw women and describes the ways that shifting patterns of p
Yingyi Ma, "Ambitious and Anxious: How Chinese College Students Succeed and Struggle in American Higher Education" (Columbia UP, 2020)
In Ambitious and Anxious: How Chinese College Students Succeed and Struggle in American Higher Education (Columbia UP, 2020), sociologist Yingyi Ma offers a multifaceted analysis of a new wave of international Chinese students—mostly self-funded—who have transformed American higher education over the past decade. This privileged yet diverse group of young people, emerging from a rapidly changing C
Lia Kent, "The Unruly Dead: Spirits, Memory, and State Formation in Timor-Leste" (U Wisconsin Press, 2024)
“What might it mean to take the dead seriously as political actors?” asks Lia Kent in this exciting new contribution to critical human rights scholarship The Unruly Dead: Spirits, Memory, and State Formation in Timor-Leste (U Wisconsin Press, 2024). In Timor-Leste, a new nation-state that experienced centuries of European colonialism before a violent occupation by Indonesia from 1975 to 1999, the
Transnational Solidarities with Nico Slate
My conversation with Nico Slate began with him reflecting on his own path into the study of historical connections between South Asia and the United States. We then moved to a wide-ranging discussion covering the importance of the transnational scale for an understanding of antiracist and anticaste politics, the repurposing of ‘race’ and ‘caste’ through creative acts of transnational translation,
Stephen Onyango Ouma, "Africa Unbound: Decolonial Pathways to Sovereignty and Liberation" (Brill, 2026)
I had a substantive conversation with Dr. Stephen Onyango Ouma, author of Africa Unbound: Decolonial Pathways to Sovereignty and Liberation (Brill, 2026). He explained that, despite achieving political independence, African countries still experience significant colonial and neo-colonial influences in their economies, education systems, cultures, and political structures.
The book argues that ge
Beth Derderian, "Art Capital: Museum Politics and the Making of the Louvre Abu Dhabi" (Stanford UP, 2026)
Museums often served nationalist and imperialist interests in the past, but the primary force in the 21st century is the market. Museum franchising—exemplified by the Louvre Abu Dhabi—is one of the most visible cases of the increasing entanglement of art and museums with capital interests. Such projects are often touted as global enterprises diversifying the art world. Frequently, critics of these
Amelia Frank-Vitale, "Leave If You Can: Migration and Violence in Bordered Worlds" (U California Press, 2026)
The consequences of U.S. border policies through the experiences of Honduran migrants. Hondurans have been at the heart of some of the most visible migration phenomena in the last few years, as well as the direct target of anti-immigrant rhetoric and policy. In Leave If You Can: Migration and Violence in Bordered Worlds (U California Press, 2026) Amelia Frank-Vitale offers a detailed portrait of
Kristina Jonutytė, "Between the Buddha and the New Tsar: Urban Religion and Minority Politics at the Asian Borderlands of Russia" (Cornell UP, 2026)
Between the Buddha and the New Tsar: Urban Religion and Minority Politics at the Asian Borderlands of Russia (Cornell UP, 2026) by Dr. Kristina Jonutytė is an ethnography of contemporary urban Buddhism in Buryatia, a republic within the Russian Federation. Kristina Jonutytė shows how—in this ethnically and religiously diverse borderland region—Buryat Buddhists are caught between an oppressive, mil
Christina Schwenkel, "Sonic Socialism: Crisis and Care in Pandemic Hanoi" (U California Press, 2025)
In an era dominated by visual information, what can the sounds of a pandemic reveal about crisis and care? How might attuning to sonic atmospheres uncover new dimensions to states of emergency and their implications for collective life? In Sonic Socialism: Crisis and Care in Pandemic Hanoi (U California Press, 2025), Christina Schwenkel examines the use of sound in COVID-19 response efforts in urb
Gregory Smits, "The Ryukyu Islands: A New History from the Stone Age to the Present" (U Chicago Press, 2026)
The Ryukyu Islands between Japan and Taiwan consist of around 160 islands and are home to about 1.5 million inhabitants. Across the islands' history, sea-lanes and trade patterns have connected them to the East China Sea region, giving them a unique vantage point on the region's changes and making them a useful lens through which to view and understand those transformations. In this book, Gregory
Caste and Tech with Murali Shanmugavelan and Sareeta Amrute
This episode features a conversation with Murali Shanmugavelan and Sareeta Amrute about how caste structures IT workspaces and communication infrastructures. We began with their reflections on how they came to scholarship and advocacy on caste. The rest of our discussion covered a range of topics including, the ideology of tech as immaterial and disembodied, the role of tech within racial and cast
Nikita Kaur Simpson, "Tension: Mental Distress and Embodied Inequality in the Western Himalayas" (Duke UP, 2026)
In Tension: Mental Distress and Embodied Inequality in the Western Himalayas (Duke UP, 2026), Dr. Nikita Kaur Simpson examines the effects of rapid development in the Himalayas on the minds and bodies of the Gaddi people who inhabit them through attention to the multifaceted state of distress they call “tension.” This “tension” takes many forms: Kamzori, or weakness, in the bodies of elderly women
Nellie Chu, "Precarious Accumulation: Fast Fashion Bosses in Transnational Guangzhou" (Duke UP, 2026)
In Precarious Accumulation: Fast Fashion Bosses in Transnational Guangzhou (Duke UP, 2026), the cultural anthropologist Nellie Chu tells the story of the migrant entrepreneurs at the heart of Guangzhou’s fast fashion industry—one of the world’s most dynamic hubs of transnational commodity production. Chu shows how rural Chinese migrants, West African traders, and South Korean jobbers navigate the
The Criminal Record Complex: Risk, Race, and the Struggle for Work in America
Most employers in the United States routinely conduct criminal background checks on job applicants, weeding out those with criminal convictions—and thus denying opportunities to those who need them most. In The Criminal Record Complex: Risk, Race, and the Struggle for Work in America (Princeton UP, 2025), Melissa Burch sheds light on one of the most significant forces of social and economic ma
Tulasi Srinivas, "The Goddess in the Mirror: An Anthropology of Beauty" (Duke UP, 2025)
In The Goddess in the Mirror: An Anthropology of Beauty (Duke UP, 2025), Tulasi Srinivas offers a pathbreaking ethnography of contemporary Indian beauty parlors in Bangalore. Exploring the gendered world of beauty in the intimate spaces of the salon, whose popularity has exploded amid an urban tech revolution, Srinivas invites us to consider what beauty is and what it does. Visiting diverse salon
Decolonising Colonial Collections: Repatriation and Cultural Competence in Museums with guest Marika Duczynski
The Cultural Competence Collective welcomes Marika Duczynski onto the podcast to discuss cultural competence, decolonial practices, and community-led curation. Marika is a Gamilaraay and Mandandanji writer and curator and is the Indigenous Heritage Curator at the University of Sydney’s Chau Chak Wing Museum. Our conversation with Marika covers a range of crucial topics, delving into what it means
Gabrielle Oliveira, "Now We Are Here: Family Migration, Children’s Education, and Dreams for a Better Life" (Stanford UP, 2025)
Who gets to live a life with dignity? Each day, families around the world make the difficult decision to leave their homes in search of safety, stability, and opportunity. For many migrant families, this search centers on access to strong, caring, and equitable educational systems that enable children to flourish. Now We Are Here: Family Migration, Children’s Education, and Dreams for a Better Lif
Piergiorgio Di Giminiani et al. eds., "The Futures of Reparations in Latin America: Imagination, Translation, and Belonging" (Rutgers UP, 2026)
Over the last thirty years, Latin America has undergone an unprecedented wave of reparations targeting victims of political violence during military regimes, Indigenous and Afro-Latin groups affected by historical processes of dispossession, and citizens suffering from environmental harm. Reparations prompt us to face uncomfortable pasts and in so doing, create conditions for imagination of multip
Miriam Ticktin, "Against Innocence: Undoing and Remaking the World" (U Chicago Press, 2025)
In this timely and bold book, Against Innocence: Undoing and Remaking the World (U Chicago Press, 2025), Miriam Ticktin explores how a concept that consistently appears as a moral good actually ends up creating harm for so many. Claims to innocence protect migrant children, but often at the expense of their parents; claims to the innocence of the fetus work to punish women. Ticktin shows how innoc
Kalpana Karunakaran, "A Woman of No Consequence: Memory, Letters and Resistance in Madras" (Context, 2026)
In this intimate, yet simultaneously anthropological, exploration of the life of her maternal grandmother Pankajam (1911–2007), Kalpana Karunakaran achieves the remarkable: capturing the singularity of an exceptional woman, even as it situates her in a social universe shaped by the conventions of Tamil Brahmin orthodoxy. Through A Woman of No Consequence: Memory, Letters and Resistance in Madras
Joseph Weiss, "Irreconcilable: Indigeneity and the Violence of Colonial Erasure in Contemporary Canada" (UNC Press, 2026)
Since the early 2000s, the Canadian government has attempted reconciliation with Indigenous Nations through varied efforts: treaty processes, government commissions, rebranding campaigns for settler-owned businesses, workshops for state and local officials, school curriculum changes, and a recently christened national holiday. However, Joseph Weiss argues, these state-driven initiatives reinforce
Upper Caste Liberalism with Ravikant Kisana
This episode features a conversation with Ravikant Kisana, Dean of the School of Liberal Education and Languages at Galgotias University in India, about his book Meet the Savarnas: Indian Millennials Whose Mediocrity Broke Everything. We discussed the term “savarna” and how his personal experiences as a student and professor in liberal institutions led him to write the book, the performativity and
Fatimah Williams, "Options for Success: A PhD's Guide to Navigating Career Transitions and Thriving in Your Next Professional Chapter" (Oxford UP, 2025)
Options for Success: A PhD's Guide to Navigating Career Transitions and Thriving in Your Next Professional Chapter (Oxford UP, 2025) is a transformative, step-by-step guide designed for early to mid-career academics exploring career paths beyond faculty roles and into careers in industry. This book speaks directly to PhDs asking "What's next?" as they consider their career options beyond the fac
Biko Koenig, "Worker Centered: Allyship & Action in the Contemporary Labor Movement" (Oxford UP, 2024)
Worker Centered: Allyship & Action in the Contemporary Labor Movement (Oxford UP, 2024) is a close-to-the-ground, ethnographic narrative of a workplace organizing campaign at a company whose workforce was primarily low wage and immigrant. The book details the overall strategy of the campaign and its ultimate failure to win its core demands. The organization used an innovative strategic model an
Mike Pitts, "Island at the Edge of the World: The Forgotten History of Easter Island" (Bloomsbury, 2025)
Rapa Nui, known to Western cultures as Easter Island for centuries, has long been a source of mystery. While the massive stone statues that populate the island’s landscape have loomed in the popular Western imagination since Europeans first set foot there in 1722, in recent years, the island has gained infamy as a cautionary tale of eco-destruction. The island’s history as it’s been written tells
Mattie Armstrong-Price, "Respectability on the Line: Gender, Race, and Labor along British and Colonial Indian Railways" (U California Press, 2026)
Respectability on the Line: Gender, Race, and Labor along British and Colonial Indian Railways (U California Press, 2026) by Dr. Mattie Armstrong-Price offers a social and cultural history of railway labor in Britain and colonial India from the 1840s through World War I. The book treats the railway industry as a microcosm through which to study the history of capitalism in the liberal imperial era
Drama of Democracy: Political Representation in Mumbai
How do the inhabitants of the Indian city of Mumbai navigate political signs and representations? What is the significance of crowds and mass mobilization to popular politics, and what lessons does the politics of Mumbai hold for Indian democracy at the current conjuncture? These questions are at the heart of Lisa Björkman’s Drama of Democracy: Political Representation in Mumbai (U Minnesota Press
Miles Kenney-Lazar, "Socializing Land: Plantations, Dispossession, and Resistance in Laos" (U Hawai’i Press, 2025)
Since 2008, there has been tremendous public interest in the social and ecological ramifications of the global land rush, a rapid increase of capital investment into land, especially for the establishment of agricultural and tree plantations. In Laos, the government has granted five percent of the national territory to investors as long-term land concessions since the early 2000s. Land investments
Coming Out as Dalit with Yashica Dutt
This episode features Yashica Dutt, journalist and author of Coming Out as Dalit. We began with a discussion of her choice to write a memoir, the significance of the memoir as a genre of Dalit writing, the politics around passing as upper caste, and what her mother’s role in the life taught her about Dalit feminism as a counter to Brahminical patriarchy. We then moved on to what her work as a jour
Maurice Rafael Magaña, "Cartographies of Youth Resistance: Hip-Hop, Punk, and Urban Autonomy in Mexico" (U California Press, 2020)
In Cartographies of Youth Resistance: Hip-Hop, Punk, and Urban Autonomy in Mexico (U California Press, 2020), based on a decade of ethnographic fieldwork, Maurice Magaña considers how urban and migrant youth in Oaxaca embrace subcultures from hip-hop to punk and adopt creative organizing practices to create meaningful channels of participation in local social and political life. In the process, yo
Elliot Dolan-Evans, "Making War Safe for Capitalism: The World Bank, IMF, and the Conflict in Ukraine" (Bristol UP, 2025)
Making War Safe for Capitalism: The World Bank, IMF, and the Conflict in Ukraine (Bristol UP, 2025) by Dr. Elliot Dolan-Evans examines the impact of World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) economic restructuring programmes during active conflicts.
Using a critical political economy perspective, the book explores how these restructuring efforts affect vulnerable communities’ survival amid
Alice Wiemers, "Village Work: Development and Rural Statecraft in Twentieth-Century Ghana" (Ohio UP, 2021)
Most development histories focus on large-scale projects and multi-year plans. But how would we understand development differently if we chose a different starting point? In Village Work: Development and Rural Statecraft in Twentieth-Century Ghana (Ohio UP, 2021), Alice Wiemers exchanges the center for the periphery. Writing outwards from Kpasenpke, a village in northern Ghana, Wiemers shows how t
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