Clashing scales of #Brexit
Mainstream newspapers, politicians and commentators across Europe instantly expressed dejection and bitterness in the face of the Brexit outcome, and avid Brexiteers have typically been portrayed as x…
Tag: Stuff
On the UK Referendum #Brexit
For me, the UK referendum story began a year ago with another referendum: that of Greece. Elected in January 2015 on a promise to end austerity, throughout the…
The politics of decency #Brexit
I have lots of things to say about Brexit. As a Romanian, holding a French passport, resident of the UK for the past 18 years, whose wife and…
Democracy on speed #Brexit
The question, when it came, was striking in its simplicity: “should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?” Two boxes.…
#Brexit, Europe and Anthropology: time to say something
Brexit means trouble, that is for certain; what is less certain is what kind of trouble. Some might sympathise with the immediate response of Chris Gregory (ANU): “I…
Racing for what? #Slow
In this post, Ruth Mueller explores how the compulsion for speed in academia plays out in the lives of postdocs. Slow science is interesting for me because I…
Is #Slow Academia Conservative?
In this post, Heather Mendick argues that some calls for slowing down scholarship mask a conservative politics. Last July I blogged about how, despite my love for online communication,…
Let’s take it SLOW! The #slow university? REDUX
This Allegra week we remain in retreat spirits, and will consequently revisit some more ‘Jewel’s of Allie’s Archive’. And what more appropriate theme for doing so than SLOW. We…
The #slow professor (book excerpt)
The Slow Professor originated in telephone conversations about coping with our academic jobs. Not reading an email sent by the department chair at 10:45 p.m. until the next…
#Slow Week! An introduction
Those who have followed Allegra’s adventures from its creation in 2013 will probably remember that our initial motto was “Slow down!”. Prior to launching the website, Allegra’s…
GONE FISHING! #holiday
With summer in full swing and the heat slowing down our brains we felt that creative spirits were in need of some rejuvenation, and thus went for a bit…
On parasitic professionalism
Last month I received an email from an “associate” working at a research institution that caters to the biggest development agencies worldwide: DFID, UN, Worldbank, Australian Aid –…
Turning cool kids into outlaws – Legal #fictions and the management of heroin abuse in post-reform China
Cool kids. On a rainy afternoon towards the end of my fieldwork in Qilin, southwest China, I sat with one of my informants, Jiao Hua – a round,…
On Chinese Pedagogical Legalism (and its Anthropological Ghost) #fictions
“You have already been incredibly faithful towards the man. And you have been following all the relevant rules for establishing a co-operative. Now, what you need to do…
‘The soul of the community’: corporate legal personhood in an indigenous settlement #fictions
In Argentina, indigenous people have been historically marginalised and rendered invisible (Gordillo & Hirsch 2003). However, over the last couple of decades there has been a timid effort…
The Emergence of “Divorce Before Consummation” as a Legal Category in Jordanian Sharia Courts #fictions
Today’s inquiry into the nature of legal fictions takes us to Jordan’s government-run Sharia courts, where the concept of “divorce before consummation” (ṭalāq qabl al-dakhūl) has become something…
LIVING #FICTIONS
The theme of “living fictions” comes from a presentation I gave at a recent meeting of the EASA Anthropology of Law and Rights network and builds on its…
Enduring Uncertainty. Deportation, Punishment and Everyday Life
On the 14th of April of 2010, I was approached by J. who had come across my doctoral research when desperately searching the net in an attempt to…
Migrant Deaths: Data, Trends and Possible Causes
In a recent article published at Allegra, Ferruccio Pastore addresses some of the problems related to counting migrant deaths in the Mediterranean. Furthermore, while stressing the arduousness of…
Forceful Hope
When I was recently asked to participate in UCL’s Refuge in a Moving World Seminar Series on a panel titled “Forced migration in, through, and from the Middle…
Flatulanthropology #BODY
When Jon was a PhD student at Edinburgh University in the early 1990s, there was a running joke about the possibility of developing a project on ethnoscatology –…
Learning to Make People Laugh: A Semiotic Anthropology of Stand-up Comedy
The Open-Mic Anthropologist The first time I performed stand-up comedy was in December 2015, at an open-mic club called On the Rocks. Gripped by nerves, I worried I…
‘Every Day is a Copy-And-Paste’: Waithood Among Tunisian Men
This morning I felt that I couldn’t bear this passivity any longer. I was sinking in my red plastic chair without anything to do. In those moments, when…
New Allegra week: #Boredom, Laughter – and a few farts!
And what do you know – it is AGAIN time for a new Allegra week! Where does the time go, despite of our determination to chew our intellectual…