“Life continues, even in 1941, even in the middle of war” – Indignity by Lea Ypi
Indignity: A life Reimagined by Lea Ypi explores the period of transition between the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the rise of Enver Hoxha’s communist regime in…
Tag: Europe
Fun in War? On Researching Fun and Entertainment in the Yugoslav Partisan Struggle.
This blog post is part of the Seminar Reconceptualizing Warfare and Its Experience, April 10, 2025, funded by the WARFUN project. Commenting on my research for the WarFun project,…
Görkem Akgöz: “The Sad Truth” Then and Now: Pasts and Presents of Danish Refugee Policy
This text was originally published in Swedish in Arbetar Historia (No.191-192, 2024). Special thanks to the editors for granting permission to republish. In 2015, during the peak of…
A Vital Frontier: Water Insurgencies in Europe – review
In A Vital Frontier, Andrea Muehlebach considers how the neoliberal financialisation of water as a public utility has sparked citizen-led resistance across Europe. Sharing ethnographic insights into a…
Jacob Engelberg: The Palestine solidarity encampments in Amsterdam: “We must refuse this cynical ploy” (introduced by Luisa Steur)
In the morning of the 6th of May, inspired by the swelling global wave of student solidarity encampments for Palestine, a group of students set up tents on…
Interview with Prof Helder Macedo: 50th anniversary of the Portuguese Revolution
Prof Helder Macedo is the emeritus Professor of Portuguese Literature at Kings College London. He is a highly regarded writer who has received many honors in Portugal. He…
Kinga Koźmińska on her book, Soundings
https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/soundings-and-the-politics-of-sociolinguistic-listening-for-transnational-space-9781350331303 Leonie Schulte: Can you describe sounding and how as a conceptual le…
Thesis Review: Bittersweet – Living with sugar and kin in contemporary Scotland
Jane preparing a cake with her son at home, Scotland (photo: Imogen Bevan) Bittersweet: Living with sugar and kin in contemporary Scotland. Imogen Bevan. PhD in Social Anthropology,…
Maddalena Gretel Cammelli: Reflections on contemporary fascism
It was 2009 when, while living in a squatted house in the Montreuil, a leftist banlieue on the East side of Paris, I was asked how it was…
The Courage of Historical Truths
With the destruction of Gaza by Israel under way and the humanitarian situation in the occupied Palestinian territories worsening day by day, a recurrent question is raised in…
Reflections on not flying: one year on
Gareth E. Hamilton, University of Latvia Rail Baltica works outside Riga’s central railway station. Author’s photograph Today on the way to the office, I witnessed a small piece…
Addendum to Normalising the Abnormal
In our last blog post, the second of our series on the return of the skulls from Inishbofin, Ciarán Walsh continued the story of the struggles to repatriate…
Normalising the Abnormal: Trinity College Dublin Decides what to do with its Collection of Stolen Skulls
Ciarán Walsh (curator.ie) Charles R. Browne, the first graduate in academic anthropology at Trinity College Dublin (TCD), went to Inishbofin in 1893 with a plan to collect skulls…
The Long Journey Home
Pegi Vail (New York University) In the most recent issue of AJEC (Volume 31 Issue 2), my colleagues and I focused on ‘World Fairs, Exhibitions and Anthropology: Revisiting Contexts of…
Anthropology and Autobiography 30 years on: An Interview with Judith Okely
Our latest issue of AJEC was dedicated to the thirtieth anniversary of the publication of Anthropology and Autobiography, edited by Judith Okely and Helen Callaway (1992). Judith was kind…
Andrea Leone-Pizzighella on her book Discourses of Student Success
Interview by Clara Miller-Broomfield https://www.routledge.com/Discourses-of-Student-Success-Language-Class-and-Social-Personae-in-Italian/Leone-Pizzighella/p/book/9780367681111 Clara Mille…
Céline Cantat: The reception spectacle: on Ukrainian displacement and selective empathy at Europe’s borders
Since the beginning of the Russian offensive on Ukraine on February 24th, over 5 million people have registered for temporary protection programmes and other schemes across Europe. By…
Profit over people? The ‘big business’ of tough immigration laws.
By Renata Carvalho As the new Nationality and Borders Bill sparks yet another wave of debates over the United Kingdom’s immigration tactics, it is important to ask: who…
Review: The Hungry Eye
Leonard Barkan. The Hungry Eye: Eating, Drinking and European Culture from Rome to the Renaissance. Princeton University Press. Princeton, New Jersey. 2021. pp. 326 ISBN: 9780691211466. …
Sandy Smith-Nonini: Energy Crises in the Time of Covid: Precarious Fossil Infrastructures
The spectacle of Russia invading Ukraine has elevated tensions over Europe’s access to natural gas and may herald a sea-change in regional geopolitics of energy. But prior to…
Fighting for injection in Paris by Johannes Lenhard
Figure 1: Non-safe-injection site behind Paris’ Gare du Nord, February 2016 (all photos by author). The first time I ever saw a person shooting up was right behind…
Environment, Labour and Capitalism at Sea (Book Review)
by Connie Scott “Fish simply appear in supermarkets” (p.209), writes Penny McCall Howard. Most consumers have little or no awareness of where their fish comes from, or of…
Ten Treasures (and a Bonus): A Selection of Anthropological Gems You Might Have Missed from the Past Few Years
I began interviewing authors of fabulous new anthropology books for this space back in 2016. While completing 11 interviews, I also amassed a backlog of more terrific books…
Your Life is Data – Wie erleben Studierende die Pandemie? (#WitnessingCorona)
Hide Press Release (2 Less Words) Laura Siebert Mein Leben als Material für meine anthropologische Forschung? Genau diesen Ansatz verfolgt die sogenannte Autoethnographie. Dabei bilden die autobiograp…