Motion of the 32nd RBA: Diversify Information and Education about the Global Anthropologies of Foreign Researchers and Anthropology Students

  *Editorial Note: AT endorses the Brazilian Anthropological Association’s Motion to “Diversify Information and Education about the Global Anthropologies of Foreign Researchers and Anthropology Students”  We, as the Editorial Team of the Journal Anthropological Theory and its sister blog Anthropological Theory Commons, endorse the recent motion approved by the Associação Brasileira de Antropologia [Brazilian Association of Anthropology] on… Read more

Torture and the veil of singularity: A commentary on Veena Das’ ‘Where is Democracy in India? Asking Anthropological Theory to Open Its Doors’

Lotte Buch Segal

In her AT Commons blogpost, Veena Das (2019) argues that torture is a social phenomenon. Hence, the relationship between the victim and the perpetrator is not external to the social. Their relationship is a social tie as are the multiple reasons that caused them to end up in those respective subject positions. The implications hereof… Read more

The material semiotics of halal: neoliberal Islam in practice

Shaheed Tayob

One evening in Johannesburg in 2011, I was having dinner with Fayroza, her husband and family. Discussing my interest in halal prompted a reflection:  ...if I go to a [Muslim/family] function and different people have brought deserts and stuff, I don’t just naturally eat it because I don’t know what cream they’ve used. I know Clover cream… Read more

Sign language as “SWEET” and “HARD”: qualia and morality in Adamorobe, Ghana

Annelies Kusters

‘SWEET and DELIGHTFUL’, or ‘HARD’ are adjectives connected to Adamorobe Sign Language (AdaSL), a sign language used in Adamorobe, an Akan village in southern Ghana marked by a history of hereditary deafness. By calling AdaSL eg. SWEET (Picture 1) or HARD, deaf people in Adamorobe attribute qualia to AdaSL. Qualia are sensuous qualities such as… Read more

Thinking with the people: The need for a slow, committed and autonomous social science

Marjorie Murray and Helene Risør

  (*This op-ed was originally published on November 2th 2019 in Spanish in the Chilean online newspaper Ciperchile. It was written in the context of the current social and political crisis in Chile).   In recent days, various newspapers, media columns and statements have been published, where universities and research centers (for example, the School… Read more

Where is Democracy in India? Asking Anthropological Theory to Open Its Doors

Veena Das

A recurring question that haunts theories of democracy is: how has torture become part of routine police procedure in these societies (Rejali, 2007)? It is a question that troubles the novels of J. M. Coetzee, especially Waiting for the Barbarians (1982) and Diary of a Bad Year (2007), and makes for stunning reading in Guantanamo… Read more

Welcome to ANTHROPOLOGICAL THEORY COMMONS!

Julia Eckert, Damián O. Martínez, Stephen Reyna, Nina Glick Schiller

Welcome to our Blog! This new blog emerges from the need to bring the theoretical discussions developed in the Journal Anthropological Theory to a wider audience, global in its scope, diverse in its horizons. We especially seek theory that speaks to the pressing issues facing humanity and the planet. ATC aims to be a home… Read more