Ida Susser: The Value of a Left Culture in Combating Worthlessness
Let me first say that I have been waiting for Don Kalb’s new book for a long time! Kalb has been a leading theorist of the growth of…
Let me first say that I have been waiting for Don Kalb’s new book for a long time! Kalb has been a leading theorist of the growth of…
Don Kalb first sent me Value and Worthlessness: The Rise of the Populist Right and Other Disruptions in the Anthropology of Capitalism in manuscript form. I had read…
Having the opportunity to say a few words about the work of an esteemed colleague and an intellectual reference like Don Kalb is a rare privilege. Value and…
This text is not about the huffing and puffing you would expect. Although Don Kalb is Dutch, his new book, Value and Worthlessness: The Rise of the Populist…
In Value and Worthlessness, Kalb has set out to do something that nobody has attempted to do since the 1970s. He develops a programmatic line of Marxist research…
Over the past decade, Pakistan has been steadily expanding its digital security, policing, and surveillance architecture, which is sensorially and materially altering how security is experienced and e…
On December 8, 2025, a brief video video was disseminated on You Tube, X and other social media to mark the first anniversary of the overthrow of the…
We write at a time of genocide, war, and the feeling that whoever has the more guns can do whatever they want. We ask how different forms of…
Alawite communities in Syria have been associated with the regime of Assad as the latter’s family itself is of Alawite descent. Consequently, Alawites have frequently faced accusations of…
What do transitional justice aspirations look like a year after the downfall of the Assad regime for Syrians in the country? What can transitional justice mean for a…
One might intuitively assume that the Syrian Sunni ulama (religious scholars) would valorize periods emblematic of Islam’s bygone grandeur, such as the Umayyad or Ottoman empires. In practice,…
In the years leading up to the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad and the downfall of the Syrian Ba’athist state, the Syrian state propagated what I referred to in…
This post examines how the new Syrian state seeks to reconstruct public memory through revisions of public-school curricula in a period of profound political and social transformation after…
Since Bashar Al-Assad was overthrown as President of Syria in early December 2024, the political situation in the country has been volatile. Although a new group of powerholders…
‘What is it like to work with Roma?’ I asked the police officer. He gestured widely, shaking his head and raising his arms and shoulders, suggesting that words…
As we write this, in January 2026, there is, theoretically speaking, a ceasefire in place in Gaza. Unfortunately, this does not mean that the war, the genocide, the…
It is the summer of 2022, and I am volunteering with Wes at a queer multi-purpose community space in Brooklyn, New York City. The space is bright pink,…
“I don’t know how to explain it”, Caro told me in an interview, “but you develop a sense [Gespür] for when you can keep standing in front of…
Suspicion appears to sit largely in the nose: we might say that something ‘stinks,’ ‘smells off,’ that we ‘smell a rat,’ or perhaps ‘something fishy.’ Such suspicious smells…
Image 1: Gated community ‘Vila Ingles’ in São Paolo. Photo by Cornelius Kibelka In urban Brazil, portarias–entry halls and porters lodges–and their staff absorb the circulation of people…
Image 1: Photo of an election poster for former Mozambican president Armando Guebuza. The poster burnt down and destroyed in relation to the uprisings in Maputo 2010. Photo…
Image 1: Akwesasne territory. Source: Mohawk Council of Akwesasne Born on US soil to citizen parents, I applied for my first passport at age 12, when my grandma…
Image 1: Exú Tranca Rua (left) and Maria Padilha das 7 Encruzilhadas (right) depicted on the walls of the center. Photo by author. When I started fieldwork in…
Image 1: Military police officer patrolling in Mangueira, Brazil. Photo by Tomas Salem Palm Springs, mid-September 2025. The American flag flies at half-staff across the city in honour…