
On capitalist utopia and the rightful share
by Deniz Seebacher & Julia Büchele The title of James Ferguson’s latest book (2015) draws from (arguably) “the world’s most widely circulated development cliché”: Give a man a fish,…
by Deniz Seebacher & Julia Büchele The title of James Ferguson’s latest book (2015) draws from (arguably) “the world’s most widely circulated development cliché”: Give a man a fish,…
by Bennett Heine Among political and social scientists in recent decades, the phrase ‘give a man a fish…’ has become more a prompt than a platitude, its pregnant ellipses…
What is resource nationalism, and why is it important? One of Wikipedia’s shortest entries, “resource nationalism” nonetheless appears in 372 files published by WikiLeaks. Resource nationalism seems t…
As stated on its back cover, in this book the influential French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002) investigates the state’s ‘extraordinary power of producing a socially ordered world without…
Review of Bourdieu, P. (2014). On the State: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1989-1992. P. Champagne, R. Lenoir, F. Poupeau, & M. C. Rivière (Eds.). London: Polity.…
When we raise questions about the assumed figures of the ‘smuggler’ and ‘trafficker’, we must also in parallel raise questions about agencies, officers, policies, and discourses of the…
Anthropologists have been studying the various phenomena associated with states and ‘state-like’ structures for a long time (cf. Fortes 1940, Leach 1954). It was only in the last…
Last 11 November, Angola celebrated forty years of independence—a memorable date. However, these celebrations have been overshadowed by a movement of contestation that has turned a spotlight on…
With the recent default on debt payment (see Franqui Rivera and Colón-Garcia 2015), Puerto Rico became a failed state. State failure is the inability or incapacity of a…
Ever felt like the best conversation at the party is happening in the next room? When I did my field research in an urban neighborhood in Java some…
Today we re-post our conversation with Judith Beyer from a joint virtual roundtable with Anthropoliteia. In her commentary, Judith answers the question: “What has struck you the most,…
The last two weeks here at Allegra have been dedicated to all things #Anthrostate. To continue the theme, we have handpicked some of our favourite new releases in the…
What logic connects Ferguson, Gaza and east Port of Spain? What cultural logics connect recent confrontations in Ferguson, Gaza, and east Port of Spain? The short answer is…