This year marks the 35th anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall (9 November 1989)!
To celebrate the Fall of the Berlin Wall, we want to spotlight our Books Series on German Studies. These series span further than only our most recent publications, and include a number of Open Access books, entirely free to read! These blog will be looking at…
General Editors: Simone Lässig, Director of the German Historical Institute, Washington, with the assistance of Patricia C. Sutcliffe, Editor, German Historical Institute.
The volumes in this series provide concise introductions to different fields of German-Jewish history with a focus on the topics of politics, society, gender and religion across the last two centuries. Reflecting the latest research developments, these titles are not only valuable resources for scholars but are also accessible to a wider audience. The authors, all experts of German-Jewish history and mostly working at German universities, focus on socio-historical perspectives, including questions of social and cultural history.
The series was first published in German by Schoeningh, now an imprint of Brill. It was edited by Stefanie Schüler-Springorum and Rainer Liedtke on behalf of the Wissenschaftliche Arbeitsgemeinschaft (Academic Working Group) of the Leo Baeck Institute in Germany. The volumes have all been updated for publication in English.
Editorial Committee: Jonathan D. Huener, University of Vermont, Susanna Schrafstetter, University of Vermont, and Alan E. Steinweis, University of Vermont
The University of Vermont has been an important venue for research on the Holocaust since Raul Hilberg began his work there in 1956. These volumes reflect the scholarly activity of UVM’s Miller Center for Holocaust Studies. They combine original research with interpretive synthesis, and address research questions of interdisciplinary and international interest.
Series Editor: Paul Betts (Executive Editor), St. Antony’s College, University of Oxford
Established in 1987 this special St. Antony’s series showcases pioneering new work by leading German historians on a range of topics concerning the history of modern Germany, Europe, and the wider world. Publications address pressing problems of political, economic, social, and intellectual history informed by contemporary debates about German and European identity, providing fresh conceptual, international, and transnational interpretations of the recent past.
The complexities and peculiarities of German history present challenges on various levels, not least on that of historiography. This series offers a platform for historians who, in response to those challenges, produce important and stimulating contributions to the various debates that take place within the discipline.
This series offers books on modern and contemporary Germany, concentrating on themes in history, political science, literature and German culture. Publications will include works in English and English translations of significant works in other languages.
You might also be interested in…
Last month, we created a collection of our most recent German Studies titles for German Unity Day, which you can read here.
The 9th of November is World Adoption Day! As described on the official website, “The day was created for the purpose of celebrating family, raising awareness for adoption and raising funds to support families in the adoption journey“. This year marks a decade since its creation. Read more from the organisation’s page here.
The first section of our blog is a collection of our latest titles relating to the studies of adoption, including books from the highlighted series, ranging from recent to backlist.
An Ethnopsychological Perspective on Kinship and Person in a Micronesian Society
Manuel Rauchholz
“It makes a unique contribution to our understanding of traditional child adoption, a topic that has received considerable attention from anthropologists working in Oceania, and especially in Micronesia.”• Donald H. Rubinstein, University of Guam
Ethnographic and Historical Perspectives on the Kazakh of Western Mongolia
Anna Odland Portisch
Telling the story of the author’s time living with a Kazakh family in a small village in western Mongolia, this book contextualizes the family’s personal stories within the broader history of the region. […] These are stories of migration across generations, bride kidnappings and marriage, domestic violence and alcoholism, adoption and family, and how people have coped in the face of political and economic crisis, poverty and loss, and, perhaps most enduringly, how love and family persist through all of this.
“This is an important book, which examines the practice of adoption from the perspective of an expert who has been exposed to the defective operation of a bureaucratic system. It re-examines critically and rigorously the role of social workers in adoption cases and it does so in a forceful and compelling way.”· Alon Harel, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
“This superb anthology extends the emphasis on technology that has become such a prominent feature of much recent anthropological work on kinship…In this richly ethnographic text, the most familiar problems produce the most unusual answers…Each chapter brilliantly combines kinship as a matrix with kinship as a tool, using ethnographic examples that leap off the page.” · Journal of Anthropological Research
Biological and Social Perspectives on Alloparenting in Human Societies
Edited by Gillian Bentley and Ruth Mace
“[This book] brings together high-quality papers from many different fields: endocrinology, evolutionary biology, demography, economics, psychology, sociology, anthropology… It can be seen as a practical tool for researchers in the field, and it provides a large amount of data across a wide range of populations and helps to find a common ground between theories emerging from different fields […]” · BioOne. Research Evolved
Reproductive Technology and the Shariah in Lebanon
Morgan Clarke
“Social scientists interested in any of these areas of study will benefit from familiarizing themselves with Clarke’s work. Those who are particularly interested in the study of reproductive technologies will find notions of milk kinship and adoption aversion useful in considering how ART is contextualized globally. Students of kinship will benefit from this text because it provides a case study of how a culturally relative approach to kinship enriches our understanding of the meanings and markers of the important relationships within a culture/religious tradition.” · Contemporary Sociology
Race, ethnicity and nation are all intimately linked to family and kinship, yet these links deserve closer attention than they usually get in social science, above all when family and kinship are changing rapidly in the context of genomic and biotechnological revolutions. Drawing on data from assisted reproduction, transnational adoption, mixed race families, Basque identity politics and post-Soviet nation-building, this volume provides new and challenging ways to understand race, ethnicity and nation.
Gender, Technology, and Biopolitics in the New Millennium
Edited by Marcia C. Inhorn
Reproductive disruptions, such as infertility, pregnancy loss, adoption, and childhood disability, are among the most distressing experiences in people’s lives. Based on research by leading medical anthropologists from around the world, this book examines such issues as local practices detrimental to safe pregnancy and birth; conflicting reproductive goals between women and men; miscommunications between pregnant women and their genetic counselors; cultural anxieties over gamete donation and adoption; the contested meanings of abortion; cultural critiques of hormone replacement therapy; and the globalization of new pharmaceutical and assisted reproductive technologies […]”.
“Transnational adoption is growing phenomenon and Norway has led the way in its legal and social development. In this pioneering study, Norwegian scholar, Signe Howell, brings to the subject not only anthropological insight but the personal experience of an adoptive parent. Her remarkable book is based on comprehensive research both in Norway and in the countries of origin of adopted children, throwing new light on the way that the children identify as Norwegians despite the tendency of adults to associate with their birth places. Howell’s findings are of great interest and significance for families and policy makers worldwide”. · John R. Gillis, Professor Emeritus of History, Rutgers University
The Culture of Policies and Practices in American Adoption
Judith S. Modell
“This book offers a thought-provoking exposition of the ironies of adoption, and by extension, the inconsistencies of our social attitudes toward parenting in general.” · Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare
General Editors: Soraya Tremayne, Founding Director, Fertility and Reproduction Studies Group and Research Affiliate, Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Oxford, Marcia C. Inhorn, William K. Lanman, Jr. Professor of Anthropology and International Affairs, Yale University, and Philip Kreager, Director, Fertility and Reproduction Studies Group, and Research Affiliate, Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology and Institute of Human Sciences, University of Oxford
Understanding the complex and multifaceted issue of human reproduction has been, and remains, of great interest both to academics and practitioners. This series includes studies by specialists in the field of social, cultural, medical, and biological anthropology, medical demography, psychology, and development studies. Current debates and issues of global relevance on the changing dynamics of fertility, human reproduction and sexuality are addressed.
Series Editors: Hayley MacGregor, Professor of Medical Anthropology and Global Health, Institute of Development Studies, and Ian Harper, Professor of Anthropology of Health and Development, University of Edinburgh
This series invites submissions (monographs or edited volumes) from scholars engaged in rethinking the ‘biosocial’ and the interconnectedness of biological and social dynamics in shaping human experience.
In recent years, significant changes and new phenomena such as the COVID-19 pandemic, advances in neurosciences and genetics, and concern about the anthropocene and global warming have advanced thinking about complex biosocial relations and the ways in which these come to be mutually constituted. Contemporary phenomena are also redefining the boundaries between the bio- and social sciences and the humanities. This involves a wide range of academic disciplines at the intersections of natural, ecological, medical and social sciences, as linked to social and biological anthropology, sociology, environmental studies, biomedicine, global health and also development studies.
We seek multiple perspectives, inter and cross-disciplinary conversations that value the varied contributions required to address our current global challenges across a diversity of regions. We are also interested in historical accounts and genealogies of the biosocial in different traditions. Thus the aim of this series is to make available to the informed public, undergraduates and postgraduate students the current and cutting edge research and debates that define these emergent parameters.
The series is supported by the RAI Biosocial Committee.
The 29th October 2024 is the International Day of Care and Support! As the United Nations explains, “Care work, both paid and unpaid, is crucial to the future of decent work. Growing populations, ageing societies, changing families, women’s secondary status in labour markets and shortcomings in social policies demand urgent action on the organization of care work from governments, employers, trade unions and individual citizens.” If not adequately addressed, current deficits in care service provision and its quality will create a severe and unsustainable global care crisis and increase gender inequalities at work.“.
Read more on the Care Economy and the International Day of Care and Support on UN’s page here.
The first section of our blog is a collection of our latest titles relating to the studies of care and support, including the more recent books from the highlighted series.
Latest Berghahn books in the study of care and support
Narratives of Vulnerable Populations and Their Caregivers
Edited by Cecilia Sem Obeng and Samuel Gyasi Obeng
“This book demonstrates that the anthropological approach is uniquely suited to uncovering how people live their lives and see their world without imposing judgment… Recommended.” • Choice
Stories of Refuge, Aid, and Repair in the Global South
Edited by Arzoo Osanloo & Cabeiri deBergh Robinson
“This volume is a timely and seminal contribution to understanding our time when humanitarian crisis unfolds in myriad forms in various sites. The perspectives on humanitarianism from the global South featured in this volume are both rich in their ethnographic grounding and multi-faceted in the analytical insights.”• Jiazhi Fengjiang, University of Edinburgh
How Self-Government, Infrastructures, and Care Transform the State in Serbia
André Thiemann
“This is a very impressive book. The analysis is developed in sustained, thoughtful and detailed engagement with a very broad range of existing literature.• Stef Jansen, University of Sarajevo
Sterilization, Care and Reproductive Chronicity in Rural North India
Eva Fiks
“Sterilization ‘camps’ have earned a bad press in India – and rightly so. Yet, as Eva Fiks demonstrates in her elegant intervention, coercion is entangled with care for village women contending with the reproductive chronicity that is integral to their daily lives.”• Patricia Jeffery, Professor Emerita, University of Edinburgh
“This is a theoretically solid book presenting unique data and perspectives on survival strategies in a broad meaning. The focus is on the most marginalized populations of the world, outlining local, long-term trajectories of their dealing with challenges and uncertainties.”• Jónína Einarsdóttir, University of Iceland
“The book provides remarkable insights into the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on front-line workers in North Carolina who care for the residential elderly (and) uses an excellent combination of ethnographic and epidemiological methods to provide in-depth qualitative insights while contextualized by the larger quantitative world of disease transmission.”• Linda M. Whiteford, University of South Florida
“In this book Hadley lays bare the complex contexts surrounding aging and male childlessness in particular in a powerfully emotive and academically rigorous manner. The book contains a powerful message to those in academia and policymakers and institutional stakeholders, of the urgent need to acknowledge this structurally excluded population. The book is of interest not only to gerontologists but anthropologists, demographers, embryologists, psychologists, sociologists, practitioners in health and care, counsellors, social workers and students at all levels and the general public.”• British Society of Gerontology
Reconfiguring Kinship along Gender and Generational Lines
Carolin Leutloff-Grandits
“This book is based on careful and in-depth ethnographic research, and it expertly embeds its findings in patterns on broader historical and geographical scales. The book displays all the hallmarks of high-quality anthropological research.”• Stef Jansen, University of Sarajevo
“This is a really good, in fact vital, contribution to our understanding of aged care. This is an opinion enhanced in part by the political context, at least in Australia, in which aged care is being discussed. In this country, which has an aging population and inadequate quality and quantity of aged care facilities, an opportunity exists to ask different kinds of questions – one of which might be about being at home in an institutional home”.• Simone Dennis, Università di Bologna
Rethinking Aging and Caregiving in Contemporary East Asian Societies
Edited by Jeanne Shea, Katrina Moore and Hong Zhang
“This is a fascinating book which inspires us with new insights and deep thoughts. Through the description of the subjective practice of caregiving and the discourse of positive aging, the book has in fact come back to the essence of filial piety, focusing on subjectivity, dignity, love, responsibility, harmony and continuity in families, communities and the state, which is beyond social transformations and challenges of time.”• Asian Journal of Social Studies
“Overall, this volume offers valuable empirical and theoretical contributions to the anthropology of care and transnational families. It is highly recommended reading for students and scholars seeking insights into novel care practices and care relations in this fast-changing field.”• International Journal of Care and Caring
An Ethnography of Healthcare and Decision-Making in Bhutan
Jonathan Taee
“This book is a welcome pioneering ethnography based on case studies that demonstrate a clear understanding of the way in which public health care services in Bhutan integrate both biomedical and ’traditional’ medicine.”• Mona Schrempf, Free University, Berlin
click to expand on… Editors: Robbie Davis-Floyd, Rice University, Houston and Ashish Premkumar, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University
Robbie Davis-Floyd PhD, Adjunct Professor, Dept. of Anthropology, Rice University, Houston, Fellow of the Society for Applied Anthropology, and Senior Advisor to the Council on Anthropology and Reproduction, is a well-known medical/reproductive anthropologist and international speaker and researcher in transformational models in childbirth, midwifery, obstetrics, and reproduction.
Ashish PremkumarMD is an Assistant Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University, as well as a maternal-fetal medicine subspecialist practicing at the John H. Stroger, Jr. Hospital of Cook County, Illinois. He is also a doctoral candidate in the Department of Anthropology at The Graduate School at Northwestern University.
Obstetricians are the primary drivers of the research on and the implementation of interventions in the birth process that have long been the subjects of anthropological critiques. In many countries, they are also primary drivers of violence, disrespect, and abuse during the perinatal period. Yet there is little social science literature on obstetricians themselves, their educational processes, and their personal rationales for their practices. Thus, this dearth of social science literature on obstetricians constitutes a huge gap waiting to be filled. These ground-breaking edited collections seek to fill that gap by officially creating an “anthropology of obstetrics and obstetricians” across countries and cultures—including biopolitical and professional cultures—so that a broad and deep understanding of these maternity care providers and their practices, ideologies, motivations, and diversities can be achieved.
General Editors: Soraya Tremayne, Founding Director, Fertility and Reproduction Studies Group and Research Affiliate, Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Oxford, Marcia C. Inhorn, William K. Lanman, Jr. Professor of Anthropology and International Affairs, Yale University, and Philip Kreager, Director, Fertility and Reproduction Studies Group, and Research Affiliate, Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology and Institute of Human Sciences, University of Oxford
Understanding the complex and multifaceted issue of human reproduction has been, and remains, of great interest both to academics and practitioners. This series includes studies by specialists in the field of social, cultural, medical, and biological anthropology, medical demography, psychology, and development studies. Current debates and issues of global relevance on the changing dynamics of fertility, human reproduction and sexuality are addressed.
A few more of our titles not shown in latest books section above:
Volume 44
Privileges of Birth: Constellations of Care, Myth, and Race in South Africa by Jennifer J. M. Rogerson
Volume 38
Reconceiving Muslim Men: Love and Marriage, Family and Care in Precarious Times, edited by Marcia C. Inhorn and Nefissa Naguib
Ageing Without Children: European and Asian Perspectives on Elderly Access to Support Networks, edited by Philip Kreager and Elisabeth Schröder-Butterfill
General Editor: Jacqueline Waldren (1937-2021), was Research Associate at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Oxford University and Director, Deia Archaeological Museum and Research Centre, Mallorca.
Migration, modernization, technology, tourism, and global communication have had dynamic effects on group identities, social values and conceptions of space, place, and politics. This series features new and innovative ethnographic studies concerned with these processes of change.
An additional title to those shown in latest books section above:
The consequences of aging will influence most areas of contemporary life around the globe, from the makeup of households and communities and systems of care to attitudes toward health, disability and life’s end. Engaging a cross-cultural framework, this series publishes monographs and collected works that examine these widespread transformations with a perspective on the entire life course and a particular focus on mid/late adulthood.
An additional title to those shown in latest books section above:
Volume 2
Unforgotten: Love and the Culture of Dementia Care in India by Bianca Brijnath
The 16th October 2024 is World Food Day! As the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations explains, “‘Foods’ stands for diversity, nutrition, affordability, accessibility and safety. A greater diversity of nutritious foods should be available in our fields, fishing nets, markets, and on our tables, for the benefit of all.” Read more from their page here.
Knowledge Reproduction and Political Economy of Cooking in Morocco
Katharina Graf
“An important contribution to the growing ethnographic literature on cooking and social life, Graf’s Food and Families in the Making stands out for its careful analysis and evocation of the senses (beyond just five), and for its well-developed autoethnography of learning cooking. A must-read for those interested in the social production of taste and in the most up-to-date approaches to sensory ethnography.”• David Sutton Southern Illinois University
“This is a valuable addition to the anthropology of food and interdisciplinary food studies. The volume’s contributors analyze a wealth of interesting phenomena from a variety of theoretical and methodological perspectives.”• Giovanni Orlando, Food sustainability consultant
“The book provides a detailed and dense study of eating-feeding practices spread among school-age children, their parents and their school environment in post-transitional Poland. The book is very interesting, much needed and refers to the important dimension of late capitalist systems in Central Eastern Europe.”• Tomasz Rakowski, University of Warsaw
Production, Exchange and Consumption in West African Migration
Maria Abranches
“This ethnographically and theoretically rich volume provides an understanding of how people and their food transform their space. Recommended.”• Choice
“This is an excellent book, ‘a little gem’, which provides a highly original contribution to both the fields of anthropology of wine and of postsocialist economies by focusing on an under-researched area.”• Marion Demossier, University of Southampton
“With writing that is highly readable, clear, and well-paced, this book will appeal to students and scholars alike, especially those studying food and cooking, Greece, and risk, and is an exceptional example of studying food practices for their theoretical bounty.”• Food, Culture & Society
The matsutake mushroom continues to be a highly sought delicacy, especially in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean cuisine. Matsutake Worlds explores this mushroom through the lens of multi-species encounters centered around the matsutake’s notorious elusiveness. The mushroom’s success, the contributors of this volume argue, cannot be accounted for by any one cultural, social, political, or economic process. Rather, the matsutake mushroom has flourished as the result of a number of different processes and dynamics, culminating in the culinary institution we know today.
Edited by Angela N. H. Creager and Jean-Paul Gaudillière
“The editors have brought together enough international work to form a broad picture of changes in the global food system. This is an extremely welcome view of how those changes were received in different places at different times.”• Technology and Culture
“The nuanced discussion of the Nyanja concepts of nourishment, as it relates to the dietary quality of vitamina (vitamins) ascribed to certain foods and as dependent on ‘interdependence, cooperative labor, compassion, and moral intelligence’, is thoughtful and challenging…Recommended.”• Choice
“Nourishing the Nation: Food as National Identity in Catalonia presents a captivating and compelling ethnographic study centered on Catalonia, exploring nationalist movements and tangible cultural aspects. This book holds immense appeal for students across diverse fields within the social sciences, effectively connecting history, anthropology, and even political science. Furthermore, the book showcases innovation and creativity by employing photo-elicitation as a method in ethnographic research. Despite its theoretical sophistication, the book maintains an approachable and engaging style, making it accessible even to the general public with an interest in understanding Catalonia’s rich history, and how the Catalans’ take pride with their gastronomic tradition.”• Anthropology Book Forum
Edited by Paul Collinson, Iain Young, Lucy Antal, and Helen Macbeth
“[This book] provides a holistic understanding of food-related activities and behaviour … both theoretical and empirical arguments are covered in a balanced manner. The volume takes cognisance of the ‘minutiae of food experiences’ (p. 19) of people with respect to sustainability, cutting across the globe.”• European Association of Social Anthropologists Journal
“One of the ethnography’s strengths lies in the theoretical frameworks that are used to delve further into the construction of a good that circulates globally and whose value is closely associated with a heritage site. Another is the author’s long-term engagement with the region: this insider status offers a unique perspective on groups of people who are not easy to access… I would recommend this book for both graduate and undergraduate teaching. The chapters stand well on their own and the volume as a whole offers an excellent example of long-term ethnographic research.”• JRAI
Editors: Janet Chrzan, University of Pennsylvania and John A. Brett, University of Colorado Denver
Published in Association with the Society for the Anthropology of Food and Nutrition (SAFN) and in Collaboration with Rachel Black and Leslie Carlin
The dramatic increase in all things food in popular and academic fields during the last two decades has generated a diverse and dynamic set of approaches for understanding the complex relationships and interactions that determine how people eat and how diet affects culture. These volumes offer a comprehensive reference for students and established scholars interested in food and nutrition research in Nutritional and Biological Anthropology, Archaeology, Socio-Cultural and Linguistic Anthropology, Food Studies and Applied Public Health.
Click to expand: Reviews
“I feel that this set will be exceptionally useful not only for anthropologists, but also for ethnographers, demographers, and others conducting research within food systems and food studies. With the burgeoning interest in food research at all levels, and with new graduate programs in the field, this book has the potential to be a crucial resource for scholars in the field… I look forward to requiring this as reading for my graduate students and advanced undergraduates.”· Teresa Mares, University of Vermont
“Unlike other resources I’ve come across, this set covers methods used in the traditional four fields of anthropology, ranging from highly quantitative and scientific oriented research to qualitative, culture oriented work… These volumes function as inclusive how-to manuals, providing examples of different questions each type of research might address as well as their limitations. Each chapter includes a helpful, extensive bibliography.”· Amy Bentley, New York University
“This set offers a comprehensive overview of methods across the discipline and beyond, providing readers with basic (and in some cases advanced) insights into why particular methods are useful and how those methods can be implemented… This is an unparalleled and comprehensive collection.”· David Beriss, University of New Orleans
Vol. 3, Food Health: Nutrition, Technology, and Public Health
Vol. 2, Food Culture: Anthropology, Linguistics and Food Studies
Vol. 1, Food Research: Nutritional Anthropology and Archaeological Methods
Series Editor: Helen Macbeth, Oxford Brookes University
Eating is something all humans must do to survive, but it is more than a biological necessity. Producing food, foraging, distributing, shopping, cooking and, of course, eating itself are all are deeply inscribed as cultural acts. This series brings together the broad range of perspectives on human food, encompassing social, cultural and nutritional aspects of food habits, beliefs, choices and technologies in different regions and societies, past and present. Each volume features cross-disciplinary and international perspectives on the topic of its title. This multidisciplinary approach is particularly relevant to the study of food-related issues in the contemporary world.
Series Editors: Jakob Klein, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) and Melissa L. Caldwell, University of California, Santa Cruz
While eating is a biological necessity, the production, distribution, preparation, consumption, and disposal of food are all deeply culturally inscribed activities. Taking an anthropological perspective, this book series provides a forum for critically engaged, ethnographically grounded work on the cultural, social, political, economic, and ecological aspects of human nutrition and food habits. The monographs and edited collections in this series present timely, food-related scholarship intended for researchers, academics, students, and those involved in food policy, businesses, and activism. Covering a wide range of topics, geographic regions and mobilities across regions, the series decenters dominant, often western-centered approaches and assumptions in food studies.
A few more of our titles not shown above:
Berghahn Journals
Enjoy FREE Access to the following articles until Oct 23!Use code FOODDAY. Redemption details here: bit.ly/3F5lmqg
Today is Indigenous Peoples’ Day! Berghahn recognizes the significance of indigenous cultures and in the spirit of this day, we have collected some of our relevant titles below.
Performing Knowledge in an Australian Indigenous Community
Franca Tamisari
“This is an excellent exploration and exegesis of Yolngu performance in all its varied forms from ceremonial to popular song and dance … This book is a highly satisfying and compelling read as its penetrating argument utilizes a sophisticated interweaving of theory and ethnography to demonstrate how learning ‘The Law’ is a foundational sense of being in and part of the boneland, (ngaraka), knowing the stories, being able to relate appropriately to kin and country and having the skills, knowledge, rights and ability to perform the songs and dances.”• Fiona Magowan, Queen’s University Belfast.
“This volume is an outstanding piece of scholarship, which, from the standpoint of the processes of creation and creativity, accomplishes, in a good measure, a critique and reassessment of current styles on analyzing Amazonian sociality.”• Juan Alvaro Echeverri, Universidad Nacional de Colombia
Decolonialization and Movements for Environmental Justice
Edited by Jaskiran Dhillon
“Although the essays were already published a while ago, they have not lost any of their relevance, and one can only wish that thanks to the volume being available through Open Access many people will discover this topical publication.”• Amerindian Research
Read freely available introduction, and more with Open Access.
“Through his own life story, Kaniuekutat speaks to many issues of importance facing the Innu in contemporary times, with an eye on tradition and the lessons of the past…A valuable text for students of anthropology, Native studies, and history.” · Choice
Perspectives on the Home, Hearth and Household in the Circumpolar North
Edited by David G. Anderson, Robert P. Wishart, and Virginie Vaté
“Each chapter offers something interesting for the reader…One can list bright and sometimes provocative ideas put forth by each contributor…The main advantage of this book is the ability to spark interest among the most diverse groups of specialists in the field of indigenous cultures.” · Social Anthropology/Anthropologie sociale
“…the articles, taken together, provide an exciting picture of the diversity that is unified in the Nordic region… [and] a significant contribution to the discussion of multiple modernities.” · Scandinavian-Canadian Studies/Études scandinaves au Canada
Personhood, Animals, Plants and Things in Contemporary Amazonia and Siberia
Edited by Marc Brightman, Vanessa Elisa Grotti, and Olga Ulturgasheva
“This thoughtful volume is extraordinarily rich and will prompt all of us interested in these questions to think about them from fresh perspectives.” • Anthropological Forum
“The contributors have made excellent use of recently opened archives and interviews with descendants of the people surveyed to provide a uniquely human portrait of this seminal project. While the chapters focus most thoroughly on the Nenets, Khanty, and Yakut, the analysis is of broader relevance to an understanding of Siberian peoples during the first stages of the sovietization of the Far North. This book will prove of unique value to historians of the Soviet period as well as to cultural anthropologists specializing in polar peoples. Highly recommended.”• Choice
The Complex Relation between Identity and Statistics
Edited by Per Axelsson and Peter Sköld
“This interesting collection looks at changes in population studies and examines indigeneity in contexts as different as Australia and Norway. It is particularly valuable with respect to two broad geographic categories: countries originally settled by British colonists, and states in northern Europe… the study of categorization and enumeration offers valuable insights on how ethnic boundaries are established, and how–inevitably–they are challenged and contested.” · Choice
Childhood, Adolescence and Autobiography among the Eveny
Olga Ulturgasheva
“This thought-provoking and highly original work, relevant especially for students of the anthropology of childhood, supplies an important new chapter to native Siberian ethnography. Highly recommended for anyone seriously interested in today’s Siberia, all levels.” · Choice
“In sum, New Media Nationoffers scholars of minorities, of digital media and of globalizing indigeneities the opportunity to understand how the practices of producing meanings through discourses of resistance contribute over time to the development and re-invigoration of alternative discourses often thought to have been dissolved by the spread of ‘mass media’. By engaging in micro-analyses of specific cultural discourses and their elaboration in specific emergent media situations, Alia alerts her readers to the importance of the complexity of the local.”• Discourse & Communication
“Valuable as an example of the anthropology of development and modernization prevalent in northern Canada at the time, the book transcends this genre in the acuity of its ethnographic analysis and beautifully captures a moment – Henriksen began fieldwork in 1966 – when Mushuau Innu were making the transition to permanent communities… This book is important for Algonquian and circumpolar specialists, as well as for students wishing to understand dynamics of hunting societies in modernity. It has also become significant as a historical record both of the Innu people and of anthropology in northern Canada.” · Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute
“…a thought-provoking book. Alia lays out the intricacies of Inuit naming so clearly, describes the Arctic environment so vividly, and conveys such a rich sense of Inuit values, concerns, and humour that readers are likely to hunger for more information and to pose ethnographic and on mastic questions that press forward the horizons of Inuit ethnography. Names and Nunavut is a welcome addition to Arctic ethnography and should be of interest not only to linguists and anthropologists working in the Arctic but to anyone interested in the relationship between onomasty, personhood, and cosmology and to anyone looking for fresh insights to the micropractices of linguistic and onomastic colonialism” · NAMES: A Journal of Onomastics
Knowing and Managing Animals in the Circumpolar North
Edited by David G. Anderson and Mark Nuttall
“The edited work contains one of the most interesting sets of northern papers to appear in a very long time…each paper is excellent…this book will hopefully provoke considerable thought…This is a work that should be discussed in terms of the particulars of the various papers, but also for the overview it provides.”– Polar Record
Click to expand text: The UN explains more on this year’s International Day of the Girl Child
Today’s generation of girls is disproportionately affected by global crises of climate, conflict, poverty and pushback on hard won gains for human rights and gender equality. Too many girls are still denied their rights, restricting their choices and limiting their futures.
Yet, recent analysis shows that girls are not only courageous in the face of crisis, but hopeful for the future. Every day, they are taking action to realize a vision of a world in which all girls are protected, respected and empowered. But girls cannot realize this vision alone. They need allies who listen to and respond to their needs.
With the right support, resources and opportunities, the potential of the world’s more than 1.1 billion girls is limitless. And when girls lead, the impact is immediate and wide reaching: families, communities and economies are all stronger, our future brighter.It is time to listen to girls, to invest in proven solutions that will accelerate progress towards a future in which every girl can fulfil her potential.
In the spirit of this day, we have compiled a collection of some of our titles looking at girlhood below, with free to read introductions and some open access titles.
For more content, you can browse though our books by subject ‘Gender Studies and Sexuality’here, or take a look at our book series ‘Transnational Girlhoods’ here.
Activism Networks by, for, and with Girls and Young Women
Edited by Catherine Vanner
The repression of the rights of girls and women is continuously threatened in a wide range of global cultural contexts. From the rise in laws restricting reproductive freedom to the growth in essentialist ideas about gender and the backlash to the #MeToo movement, the challenges facing girls and young women are as diverse as the activism networks established to address them. Girls Take Action shines light on the myriad ways girls and young women are exercising agency in the face of injustice, considering especially the role of community and collaboration in fostering activism networks and ultimately a more transnational understanding of girlhood.
Schooling, Aspirations and Imagining the Future Among Female Students in Sri Lanka
Laura Shamali Batatota
For female Sinhalese students attending a national school in the Central Province of Sri Lanka, the school serves as a significant base for cultural production, particularly in reproducing ethno-religious hegemony under the guise of ‘good’ Buddhist girls. It illustrates that tuition space acts as an important site for placemaking, where students play out their cosmopolitan aspirations whilst acquiring educational capital. Drawing on theories of social reproduction, the book examines young people’s aspirations of ‘figuring out’ their identity and visions of the future in the backdrop of nation-building processes within the school.
Stories of Black Girlhoods Gathered on Educational Terrain
Edited by Esther O. Ohito and Lucía Mock Muñoz de Luna
Locating Black girls’ desires, needs, knowledge bases, and lived experiences in relation to their social identities has become increasingly important in the study of transnational girlhoods. Black Schoolgirls in Space pushes this discourse even further by exploring how Black girls negotiate and navigate borders of blackness, gender, and girlhood in educational spaces. The contributors of this collected volume highlight Black girls as actors and agents of not only girlhood but also the larger, transnational educational worlds in which their girlhoods are contained.
Edited by Heather Switzer, Karishma Desai, and Emily Bent
“This collection is a well-imagined, important, incisive contribution to the fields of girlhood studies, development studies, and gender studies that deftly exposes the contradictions, complications, and limits of the “Girls in Development” paradigm and the ways it shapes the current landscape of development and thus the lives of girls around the world.”• Jessica Taft, University of California Santa Cruz
“The Girl in the Pandemic makes a unique and much-needed contribution to the scholarship on Girlhood Studies in times of crises in different global contexts and particularly including scholarship from the global south and north.”• Relebohile Moletsane, University of KwaZulu-Natal
Gender, Religion and Belonging in Women-Only Kickboxing
Jasmijn Rana
“Jasmijn Rana has written an engaging, well-crafted and long-anticipated ethnography of the intersectionally gendered and racialized experience of Muslim Dutch women, drawn from her own apprenticeship in women-only kickboxing venues in the southern neighbourhoods of The Hague.”• Paul Silverstein, Reed College
“It offers a unique contribution to the literature on Papua New Guinea societies. The ethnography was collected at a time when it was possible to engage with people who had witnessed and participated in complex rites which have lapsed or been replaced by recent introductions.”• James Leach, CNRS
“The book provides a thought-provoking and insightful exploration of the transnational impact of Barbie as a cultural object, highlighting the importance of critically examining the cultural products that shape our understanding of gender, race, and identity.”• Women’s Studies
Agency, Social Vulnerability and Welfare Measures in Europe and Beyond
Edited by Maria A. Vogel and Linda Arnell
“This collection truly captures what it means to live like a girl in contemporary Europe, and it is sure to be a key resource for scholars working in the area for years to come.”• Fiona Vera-Gray, Durham University
Edited by Relebohile Moletsane, Lisa Wiebesiek, Astrid Treffry-Goatley, and April Mandrona
“[This] is an outstanding book with highly fascinating chapter contributions theorizing significant issues of co-researchers, and thereby offering a how-to for conducting participatory research in an ethical manner.”• Participatory Research Methods
In recent decades, emerging scholarship in the field of girlhood studies has led to a particular interest in dolls as sources of documentary evidence. Deconstructing Dolls pushes the boundaries of doll studies by expanding the definition of dolls, ages of doll players, sites of play, research methods, and application of theory. By utilizing a variety of new approaches, this collected volume seeks to understand the historical and contemporary significance of dolls and girlhood play, particularly as they relate to social meanings in the lives of girls and young women across race, age, time, and culture.
“Ann Smith’s collection provides both inspiration and a challenge to readers, writers, and researchers of girls and girls themselves to transverse physical and conceptual borders critically to write their own transnational girl into lived and textual existence.”• Girlhood Studies
For more content, you can browse though our books by subject ‘Gender Studies and Sexuality’ here, or take a look at our books series ‘Transnational Girlhoods’ here.
Girlhood Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal is a peer-reviewed journal providing a forum for the critical discussion of girlhood from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, and for the dissemination of current research and reflections on girls’ lives to a broad, cross-disciplinary audience of scholars, researchers, practitioners in the fields of education, social service and health care and policy makers.
Aspasia The International Yearbook of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern European Women’s and Gender History
Aspasia is the international peer-reviewed annual of women’s and gender history of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe (CESEE). It aims to transform European women’s and gender history by expanding comparative research on women and gender to all parts of Europe, creating a European history of women and gender that encompasses more than the traditional Western European perspective.
As described by the International Union of Architects, “World Architecture Day (WAD), created by the International Union of Architects (UIA) in 1985, is celebrated annually on the first Monday of October. This day coincides with the United Nations World Habitat Day, aligning the architectural community’s efforts with global urban development goals.”. This year’s theme is ‘Empowering the next generation to participate in urban design’. Read more from their page here.
In the spirit of this day, we have compiled some of our Architecture titles below, spanning across subjects, with free to read introductions.
Bodily, geographic, and architectural sites are embedded with cultural knowledge and social value. This series provides ethnographically rich analyses of the cultural organization and meanings of these sites of space, architecture, landscape, and places of the body. Contributions examine the symbolic meanings of space and place, the cultural and historical processes involved in their construction and contestation, and how they communicate with wider political, religious, social, and economic institutions.
The Yenidze Cigarette Factory of 1909 was constructed as an industrial, architectural object that advertised Dresden as a center for the tobacco trade. Born from a unique client-architect relationship between Hugo Zietz and Martin Hammitzsch, the factory’s importance to modernism has been understated. Smoke and Mirrors uncovers the history of the factory’s planning, design, and construction, and for the first time, apart from the building’s historical narrative, positions this addition to Dresden’s skyline within the formative histories of the modern movement.
Edited by Ulrike Spring, Johan Schimanski and Thea Aarbakke
“This is a fine and rich collection of essays on the topic of the literary museum, notably on the writer’s house museum. It offers engaging perspectives and new horizons that in the international scholarship on this topic will be highly appreciated.”• Harald Hendrix, University of Utrecht
Anthropological Perspectives on Changing Practices of Dwelling and Building
Edited by Jonathan Alderman and Rosalie Stolz
“An interesting and worthwhile collection, covering a wide range of different themes relating to change and transformation related to the house.”• Monica Janowski, University of London
Architecture, Material Culture and the Workhouse under the New Poor Law
Charlotte Newman and Katherine Fennelly
“This is an excellent and fascinating examination of how archaeology can inform the study of poverty in nineteenth century England. The work takes as its focus the exploration of workhouses and how the analysis of the built material culture can aid our understanding of them. It exemplifies the value of using detailed case studies to interrogate and critique national models and understandings of social experience. To tell, what Hicks and Beaudry have called, ‘stories that matter’.”• Matthew Jenkins, University of York
“While there has been an exponential growth in the literature on refugees and forced migration over the past decade, the issue of shelter has received very little attention. This volume fills that important gap in an admirable manner.”• Jeff Crisp, University of Oxford
Edited by A.-Chr Engels-Schwarzpaul, Lana Lopesi, and Albert L. Refiti
“The authors make an important contribution to understanding spatial relationships within indigenous communities. The book highlights an important, and often overlooked, connection between space, time, and the built environment by breaking the disciplinary bounds that often confine our understandings.”• Jamon Alex Halvaksz, University of Texas at San Antonio
Nordic Maritime Museums’ Portrayals of Shipping, Seafarers and Maritime Communities
Annika Bünz
A characteristic trait of the maritime museums is that they are often located in a contemporary and/or historical environment from which the collections and narratives originate. The museum can thereby be directly linked to the site and its history. It is therefore vital to investigate the maritime museums in terms of relationships between landscape, architecture, museum and collections. This volume unravels the kinds of worlds and realities the Nordic maritime museums stage, which identities and national myths they depict, and how they make use of both the surrounding maritime environments and the architectural properties of the museum buildings.
National Narratives, Monument Preservation and Architectural Work in the Nineteenth Century
Edited by Dragan Damjanović and Aleksander Łupienko
“The book Forging Architectural Tradition is an excellent contribution for anyone interested in the creation of national narratives around architectural buildings. It is suitable for architects, art historians, historians, sociologists, cultural researchers, and the general cultural public, as well as anyone interested in the national narratives of ‘small’ nations. The topics explored in the book should not be viewed as a part of the distant past but as still current as the historical processes described in the book can help us deal with problems related to the politicization of heritage that is still evident today.”• Prostor
Poetry, Architecture, and Coloniality at the Open City
Maxwell Woods
“At the heart of the project are the politics of avant-gardism and of the brutally repressive dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet. Though not an easy read, this is certainly a volume that specialists in visionary experiments of the 20th century will want to take into account…Recommended.”• Choice
German Unity Day is celebrated on October 3rd.Tag der Deutschen Einheit celebrates the 1990 reunification of the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic with ceremonial acts and the citizens’ festival Bürgerfest.
In the spirit of this day, we have compiled some of our German Studies titles below.
Germany has undergone more change in the past two years than it has experienced in decades. In the fall of 2021, the Social Democratic Party unexpectedly surged to first place in the Bundestag elections, going on to lead a coalition of SPD, Greens, and Free Democrats that promised to “dare more progress” domestically. Then just two months after the new government was installed, Russia invaded Ukraine. The contributions in this volume investigate the altered state of German politics and predict the trajectory of Europe’s leading power in the transformed geopolitical environment.
Intimate Histories focuses on intimate relations as sites of shared pasts connecting African American and German history in the years between 1933 and 1990. By tracing topics that include anti-miscegenation laws, forced sterilization, casual sexual encounters, marriage, and friendships, Intimate Histories broadens our understanding of African American–German relations during the so-called “century of extremes.”
Western Culture in East Germany and the Fall of the Berlin Wall
Gerd Horten
“Horten has written a fascinating, very readable, analytically sharp monograph, based on an impressive amount of primary and secondary sources… The average East German, not the few dissidents or the few fanatics on top, are the real heroes of his narrative.”• H-Soz-Kult
Conspicuous Reproduction and Childlessness in Reunified Berlin
Meghana Joshi
“There are some unique and important discussions [in this book] that I have not seen elaborated elsewhere and certainly not brought together in one place.”• Heide Castañeda, University of South Florida
German Division as Shared Experience Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Postwar Everyday Edited by Erica Carter, Jan Palmowski, and Katrin Schreiter
“All told, this volume successfully brings together its fascinating chapters into a powerful interdisciplinary analysis. German Division as Shared Experience is a significant achievement that will serve as a bedrock for future research on the ‘entanglement’ of the Cold War Germanies. The editors and contributors have produced a genuinely pathbreaking book.”• The Journal of Modern History
Women’s Stories of Power, Politics, and Everyday Life across East and West Germany
Phil Leask
“Beginning and advanced students can learn much from this highly readable book. Its bottom-up view of postwar German history is revealing even to the expert. Its subtle and perceptive interpretations of attitudes about gender and womanhood, Heimat and the German past, politics and everyday life are enlightening. It provokes one to think about friendship, the psychology of groups, and ageing in new and refreshing ways. A most worthwhile read.”• German History
“This is an important book crafted by a master of intellectual history. It will be widely consumed and discussed among German historians and a wide range of intellectuals interested in the origins of the modern surveillance state. Essential.”• Choice
Organizational Culture and Practice of Rule in the Socialist Unity Party of Germany
Rüdiger Bergien
Everyday life in the East German Socialist Unity Party revolved heavily around maintaining the “party line” in all areas of society, whether through direct authority or corruption. Spanning a long period of the GDR’s history, from 1946 through 1989, Rüdiger Bergien presents the first study that examines the complexities of the central party’s communist apparatus. He focuses on their role as ideological watchdogs, as they fostered an underbelly and “inner life” for their employees to integrate the party’s pillars throughout East German society. Inside Party Headquarters reviews not only the party’s modes power and state interaction, but also the processes of negotiation and disputation preceding formal Politburo decisions, advancing the available detail and discourse surrounding this formative and volatile stretch of German history.
“These impressively researched chapters persuasively demonstrate that France was a leader in addressing postwar concerns with West Germany. Furthermore, the authors argue that France sought a constructive relationship with West Germany as early as 1945. From the economic rebuilding of the 1950s through de Gaulle’s desire to transform the continent and negotiations with the Eastern bloc following Ostpolitik to Mitterand’s support for German reunification within a European framework, this collection makes clear that the fates of the two countries were often inextricably linked. Highly Recommended.”• Choice
Political Languages of Conservatism in Britain and West Germany, 1945-1980
Martina Steber
Since 1945, what ‘conservative’ means has troubled intellectuals, politicians and parties in the United Kingdom and West Germany. In Britain conservatism was an accepted term of the political vocabulary, denoting a particular tradition of political thought and practice. In West Germany, by contrast, conservatism was a difficult concept for the young democracy to swallow. It carried a heavy antiliberal and antidemocratic burden and led people to question whether there was a place for conservatism within democratic culture after all.
The Guardians of Concepts scrutinizes the debates about conservatism in the UK and the Federal Republic of Germany from the late 1940s to the early 1980s. Informed by historical semantics, it conceives of conservatism as a flexible linguistic structure, and shows the importance of language for the self-understanding of many conservatives, who not by chance, have regarded themselves as the guardians of concepts. The intense national and transnational debates about the meaning of conservatism had far-reaching consequences and continue to influence politics today.
“This story is so far little known and not a big topic of the German public. Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk closes our knowledge gaps in an impressive way”• Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
“This book is important because it opens avenues of research into queerness in East Germany’s National People’s Army (NVA)… Smith’s book is commendable for breaking barriers in masculinity studies and offering a refreshing second look at the NVA… Highly Recommended. All readers.”• Choice
Edited by Karen Hagemann, Donna Harsch, and Friederike Brühöfener
“This volume achieves a tremendous feat in its breadth, though its forte lies in its diverse contexts, uses, and understandings of gender—including its co-constituency with race and sexuality… This collection offers a much-needed re-narrativization of a divided Germany that centers gender, race, and sex in the shaping of citizenry during postwar nation-making.”• Feminist German Studies
Selves and Solidarities in West Germany and Beyond
Edited by Belinda Davis, Friederike Brühöfener, and Stephen Milder
“A volume on social movements in the 1970s and 1980s is very welcome and timely. Now that there exists a solid corpus of monographs on the Long Sixties, serious research on the 1970s is slowly beginning to see the light of day – less so on the 1980s. Thus, Rethinking Social Movements after ’68 will begin to fill a growing need.”• Gerd-Rainer Horn, Sciences Po
“…the range and rigour make this handbook a useful point of entry for specialists and students alike interested in understanding the transformation of Germany in the last half century.”• European History Quarterly
“Gieseke treats… many issues with careful and lucid analysis, confining himself to the known facts. He rejects the hyperbolic in favor of more mundane explanations. The truth is bad enough… Essential.”• Choice
“…constitutes a superlative model of combining biography with the study of nationalism. The latter constitutes the most novel contribution of this well-researched, straightforward historical depiction of Kohl’s ideology and its impact upon the continuing development of German national identity… Recommended” · Choice
Editor: Jeffrey J. Anderson, Georgetown University
German Politics and Society is a joint publication of the BMW Center for German and European Studies (of the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University) and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). These centers are represented by their directors on the journal’s Editorial Committee.
German Politics and Society is a peer-reviewed journal published and distributed by Berghahn Journals. It is the only American publication that explores issues in modern Germany from the combined perspectives of the social sciences, history, and cultural studies.
The 30th of September is International Translation Day, celebrated on the same day as the feast of St. Jerome, who is considered the patron saint of translators. The United Nations established International Translation Day in 2017 “to pay tribute to the work of language professionals, which plays an important role in bringing nations together, facilitating dialogue, understanding and cooperation, contributing to development and strengthening world peace and security”. Read more from the UN page here.
In the spirit of this day, we have compiled some of our translated titles from 2024 below, with freely available introductions, and linked some of our 2023 titles at the bottom of this page.
A Different Migration History of London’s East End, 1780-1850
Ole Münch
Translated by Angela Davies and Jozef van der Voort from German
In the early Victorian age, the streets of East London were home to migrants from different regions and religions. In the midst of this area lay the famous Rag Fair street market, sustained by trade routes stretching across the globe. The market’s history demonstrates that it was not only a place of economic exchange, but also an intercultural contact zone where Jewish and Irish migrants mingled, entered client relationships and forged political alliances. Reconstructing the varied (partly multiethnic) group-building processes operating in the market, Rag Fair draws on approaches across migration history, economic history, economic anthropology and the sociology of political movements to uncover the social mechanisms at work in the old clothing trade.
Rodeo, cattle ranching, and bullfighting converge in the arenas of race, gender, and ethics in Reversible America. In Southwestern California, these sports manifest in spectacular expressions of transcultural interactions that continue to develop through border crossings. Using an interdisciplinary scope, this unique look into the subculture negotiates the paradoxes and connections between the popular American performances, Iberian bullfighting, and Native American hunting methods, along with the relationship between human and non-human beings, and systems of value across borders.
Edited by Enrico Heitzer, Martin Jander, Anetta Kahane, and Patrice G. Poutrus Translated from the German
“It is a combination of the expertise of academics and professional practitioners, enhanced by personal insights, that make this volume unique and especially intriguing.”• Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs
Miriam Rürup, edited by Jake Schneider Translated by Bill Templer from German
Tracing the social history of modern German Jews from the end of the 18th century up to the aftermath of World War II, Miriam Rürup follows their ascent into the middle and upper middle classes through repeated experiences of setbacks but also of self-assertion. In doing so it is explained how Jewish life changed under the auspices of emancipation and what impact these changes had on the demographic and social profile of the Jewish minority. With a focus on the daily interactions between Jews and other Germans when choosing a home, profession, or school, for example, Social History of German Jews shows the contrasting processes of integration and exclusion in a new light.
War, Emotion, and Extreme Violence in Colonial Namibia
Matthias Häussler Translated from the German by Elizabeth Janik
“The author impressively demonstrates that emotions can be the driving force behind cruelty and is able to portray the brutalization of ordinary soldiers, who ultimately also became ‘motor[s] of extermination,’ more clearly than previous studies have done. Fear, bitterness, and frustration in the face of military failures led to violence…Häussler’s work is an innovative, at times brilliant study that deserves a wide readership – hopefully, and thanks to the translation, now also in English-speaking countries.”• Central European History
From Italian Supremacy to Subservience to the Reich (1932-1943)
Monica Fioravanzo
Translated by Ian Mansbridge from Italian
By shedding light on an often-overlooked aspect of Fascism and Nazism, this book examines the ambitious plans for a new European order conceived by Italian intellectuals, historians, geographers, politicians, and even student representative of the Fascist University Groups (GUF). Through expert reconstruction of the debate on this envisaged order’s development, Monica Fioravanzo opens a window into the theoretical arena that shaped relationships between German, Italy and the other Axis nations and provides insight into how the project was anticipated to unite the Fascist regime in Italy and the Nazi Reich.
This concise overview traces the Gender history of German-Jews from the early modern period to the present day and provides a unique perspective on both men and women as historical actors in the German lands. By adopting new perspectives on the German-Jewish experience, Stefanie Schüler-Springorum introduces and examines gender narratives and opportunities across a wide range of individual circumstances and during times of discrimination, persecution and deportation. While being directed against all Jews the effects of Nazi policy had remarkably different results, depending on gender, class, marital status, age and religious affiliation. The picture that emerges here of German Jewry in modern times is consequently more vibrant and nuanced.
Transnational Hispanic Commemorations and Spanish Nationalism
Javier Moreno-Luzón
Translated by Nick Rider from Spanish
Commemorations that shaped major elements of Spanish identity at the beginning of the 20th century are full of centennials and anniversaries that elaborate and renew the Spanish national mythology. In Centennial Fever Javier Moreno-Luzón, one of the most prominent Spanish historians of his generation, studies the milestones that defined transnational dimensions of celebration at the beginning of the 20th century including the Peninsular War, the first Spanish Constitution, the independence of Latin American States, the “discovery” of the Pacific Ocean and the death of Miguel de Cervantes and the publication of Don Quixote of La Mancha. Through these truly global events, a cultural community is created, called “Hispanoamerica” or “La Raza”, on which Spanish nationalism has become dependent.
Pardis Shafafi (CNRS Paris and Designit) and Samira Marty (Binghamton University) are our incoming editors of Anthropology in Action.
Samira Marty and Pardis Shafafi are anthropologists who bring a wealth of practitioner and applied experiences to the journal. They believe in the public and discourse shaping potential of anthropological thought and in experimenting and developing ethnographic methodologies in urgent and contemporary environments. Their themes and approaches of interest speak to these experiences, with Marty conducting long-term fieldwork between Central America and Germany and Shafafi engaged with non-state armed groups from Iran, both focussing on political violence and grassroots movements and all the contradictions and promises contained therein.
Dr. Pardis Shafafi, French National Centre for Scientific Research, France
Dr. Samira Marty, Binghamton University, US
What made you interested in the role of co-editors of Anthropology in Action?
Pardis Shafafi: Primarily, I’ve been looking for a way to collaborate with Samira in a formalised setting and this seemed like the perfect forum. Aside from this, while I’ve published and edited in different contexts, academic journals represent a new challenge and, to be honest, an area I have often wanted to shape and evolve. As an editor, I’m able to participate in a process that is often skewed in favour of certain kinds of academics and journals themselves. It’s exciting to be in a position to encourage more inclusive and non-traditional perspectives, and in a collaborative vein.
What unique perspectives do you both bring to the journal as new editors?
Samira Marty: As social and political anthropologists, Pardis and I bring a wealth of practitioner and applied experiences to the journal. My work is informed by long-term fieldwork between Central America and Germany, where I focus on the complex dynamics of political violence and transnational solidarity from a grassroots perspective. These experiences have profoundly impacted my approach to anthropology, and I believe in the power of ethnographic methodologies to address urgent and contemporary issues. I’m also strongly committed to bringing insights outside of institutional anthropology back to the table—mostly because I’ve worked in fields I’ve been active in, such as food, journalism, policy advisory, emerging tech, and special education.
Pardis Shafafi: In my current role as an anthropology practitioner in design, I’m focused on analysing societal changes and how they impact our social relations and global perspectives. Much of my work is centred on emerging technologies, where I teach and train critical thinking, ethical practices and rigorous research as an antidote to unintended harms which may arise in these fields. Although not immediately obvious, my research interests lie in grassroots political movements, state violence and collective trauma-work to inform each other, at macro and micro levels. These layers of complexity and their manifestation in the everyday inspire much of my work. Like Samira, I am driven by a belief in a more public-facing anthropology and our combined experiences inform our commitment to exploring and developing ethnographic methods that are both innovative and responsive to the challenges of our time- whether in the field of AI in healthcare, or organising political movements in the diaspora.
What is your vision for the journal during your tenure?
Samira Marty: Our vision is to feature cutting-edge and thought-provoking scholarship that errs on the side of creative, critical, and daring. We really strive to push the boundaries of the more conventional academic discourse in AiA. That’s why we’re especially welcoming contributions that explore emerging and timely topics that are often neglected in scholarly discourse, such as the entangled lives we lead with advancing technologies, the public discourses surrounding genocide, or the application of design thinking for systems change, to name a few. Whether it’s exploring the everyday life implications, or the macro-structural junctures that drive societal change, we want the journal to be a platform for scholarship that is as ambitious and daring as the subjects it tackles.
How do you see the role of ‘applied’ anthropology in the journal’s future?
Pardis Shafafi: We take the term ‘applied’ in the journal title very seriously. For us, applied anthropology is not just about practical application but also about deeply engaging with the core issues that define contemporary life. We are particularly interested in how anthropology can contribute to shaping ideal futures, both through scholarly work and real-world applications. We both have drawn these connections in our professional lives, as we’ve touched upon earlier, and are keen to develop this area in the wider anthropology realm.
What kinds of submissions are you particularly looking for?
Samira Marty: We want to see work that challenges what is traditionally considered the “canon” of anthropological scholarship. We strongly invite submissions from non-traditional anthropologists who explore the intersections of anthropology across disciplines and consider the broader implications of anthropological research for society at large.To facilitate this dialogue,we continue to publish shorter formats and have updated our guidelines for the submission section on the journal’s homepage.All in all, we’re interested in contributions that are deeply engaged with the world around us and not only analyze the world as it is but also imagine what it could be.
What significant developments do you see in anthropology, and which topics will be especially pertinent today and in the near future?
Pardis Shafafi: What I observe from my tenure in the applied field is that there is a disconnect between immersive design and technology research, which focuses on specific modes of knowledge production within these fields, yet the profound global impact they have on our lives. This disconnect happens both within and between these industries – and, what is more, it has remained a blackbox in anthropological interrogations. I regret this, as the impact of emerging technologies on our lives extends far beyond the defining products and services, leaving substantial imprints on social relations and political values.
Samira Marty: Those who hold the finger on the pulse of anthropological inquiry know how to differentiate between intrinsic and “trendy” research interests, which often reflect those of larger funding bodies. As co-editors, we’re dedicated to showcasing critical thinkers whose work may be underrepresented in journals that predominantly feature established scholars and prestigious grant recipients. Leading journals such as Anthropology in Action provide a pivotal platform for these emerging voices, and we’re so excited to take this challenge on.
Learn more about how to submit to Anthropology in Actionhere.