Tag: anthropology

World Adoption Day

9 November

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.

We would like to highlight two of our book series: Fertility, Reproduction and Sexuality: Social and Cultural Perspectives, and Rethinking Biosocial Anthropology. For more details on these series, scroll down to the second section of this blog.

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.

You might also be interested in our blog post marking the International Day of Care and Support.

Berghahn books in the study of adoption

Adoption, Emotion, and Identity

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

Volume 8, Person, Space and Memory in the Contemporary Pacific

Read our freely available introduction.

A Magpie’s Tale

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.

Volume 1, Lifeworlds: Knowledges, Politics, Histories

Read our freely available introduction.

In the Best Interests of the Child

Loss and Suffering in Adoption Proceedings

Mili Mass

“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

Read our freely available introduction.

European Kinship in the Age of Biotechnology

Edited by Jeanette Edwards and Carles Salazar

“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

Volume 14, Fertility, Reproduction and Sexuality: Social and Cultural Perspectives

Substitute Parents

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

Volume 3, Rethinking Biosocial Anthropology

Islam and New Kinship

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

Volume 16, Fertility, Reproduction and Sexuality: Social and Cultural Perspectives

Race, Ethnicity, and Nation

Perspectives from Kinship and Genetics

Edited by Peter Wade

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.

Volume 1, Rethinking Biosocial Anthropology

Reproductive Disruptions

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 […]”.

Volume 11, Fertility, Reproduction and Sexuality: Social and Cultural Perspectives

The Kinning of Foreigners

Transnational Adoption in a Global Perspective

Signe Howell

“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

A Sealed and Secret Kinship

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

Volume 3, Public Issues in Anthropological Perspective

Berghahn Books Series with titles on adoption

Fertility, Reproduction and Sexuality: Social and Cultural Perspectives

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.

Volume 55
Volume 54, Open Access
Volume 53
Volume 52, Open Access

Rethinking Biosocial Anthropology

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.

Volume 10
Volume 9
Volume 8
Volume 7

Journals

You might also be interested in…

International Day of Care and Support

29 October

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.

We would like to highlight four of our book series: The Anthropology of Obstetrics and Obstetricians: The Practice, Maintenance, and Reproduction of a Biomedical Profession, Fertility, Reproduction and Sexuality: Social and Cultural Perspectives, New Directions in Anthropology, and Life Course, Culture and Aging: Global Transformations. For more details on these series, scroll down to the second section of this blog.

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

 Paperback coming January 2025

Invisible Faces and Hidden Stories

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

Volume 12, Studies in Public and Applied Anthropology

Read freely available introduction.

Open Access

Care in a Time of Humanitarianism

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

Volume 5, Humanitarianism and Security

Read freely available introduction, and more with Open Access.

The Politics of Relations

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

Volume 49, EASA Series

Read freely available introduction.

State Intimacies

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

Volume 4, Lifeworlds: Knowledges, Politics, Histories

Read freely available introduction.

Fragile Futures

Ambiguities of Care in Burkina Faso

Helle Samuelsen

“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

Volume 22, Epistemologies of Healing

Read freely available introduction.

Open Access

Voices of Long-Term Care Workers

Elder Care in the Time of COVID-19 and Beyond

Andrea Freidus and Dena Shenk

“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

Volume 10, Life Course, Culture and Aging: Global Transformations

Read freely available introduction, and more with open access.

How is a Man Supposed to be a Man?

Male Childlessness – a Life Course Disrupted

Robin A. Hadley

“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

Volume 48, Fertility, Reproduction and Sexuality: Social and Cultural Perspectives

Read freely available introduction.

Open Access

Translocal Care across Kosovo’s Borders

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

Volume 8, Anthropology of Europe

Read freely available introduction, and more with open access.

At Home in a Nursing Home

An Ethnography of Movement and Care in Australia

Angela Rong Yang Zhang

“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

Volume 9, Life Course, Culture and Aging: Global Transformations

Read freely available introduction.

Migration and Health

Challenging the Borders of Belonging, Care, and Policy

Edited by Nadia El-Shaarawi and Stéphanie Larchanché

“This is a welcome and timely addition to the scholarly literature on migration and health.” • Charles Watters, University of Sussex

Volume 10, Rethinking Biosocial Anthropology

Read freely available introduction.

Beyond Filial Piety

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

Volume 6, Life Course, Culture and Aging: Global Transformations

Read freely available introduction.

Care across Distance

Ethnographic Explorations of Aging and Migration

Edited by Azra Hromadžić and Monika Palmberger

“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

Volume 4, Life Course, Culture and Aging: Global Transformations

Read freely available introduction.

The Patient Multiple

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

Volume 4, WYSE Series in Social Anthropology

Read freely available introduction.

Berghahn Books Series with titles on the study of care

The Anthropology of Obstetrics and Obstetricians: The Practice, Maintenance, and Reproduction of a Biomedical Profession

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.

Volume 1
Volume 2
Volume 3

Obstetricians Speak: On Training, Practice, Fear, and Transformation

Cognition, Risk, and Responsibility in Obstetrics: Anthropological Analyses and Critiques of Obstetricians’ Practices

Obstetric Violence and Systemic Disparities: Can Obstetrics Be Humanized and Decolonized?

Fertility, Reproduction and Sexuality: Social and Cultural Perspectives

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

Volume 33

Patient-Centred IVF: Bioethics and Care in a Dutch Clinic by Trudie Gerrits

Volume 6

Ageing Without Children: European and Asian Perspectives on Elderly Access to Support Networks, edited by Philip Kreager and Elisabeth Schröder-Butterfill

New Directions in Anthropology

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:

Volume 41

Living Before Dying: Imagining and Remembering Home by Janette Davies

Life Course, Culture and Aging: Global Transformations

General Editor: Jay Sokolovsky, University of South Florida St. Petersburg

Published by Berghahn Books under the auspices of the Association for Anthropology and Gerontology (AAGE) and the American Anthropological Association Interest Group on Aging and the Life Course.

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

World Food Day 

16 October 2024

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.

We would like to highlight three of our book series: Research Methods For Anthropological Studies Of Food And Nutrition, Anthropology Of Food And Nutrition and Food Nutrition And Culture. For more details on these series, scroll down below.

You can also browse our books by subject: Food & Nutrition here, which will include some of our series’ titles.

Latest Titles in Food & Nutrition

Food and Families in the Making

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

Volume 8, Food, Nutrition, and Culture

Read freely available introduction.

Pure Food

Theoretical and Cross-Cultural Perspectives

Edited by Paul Collinson and Helen Macbeth

“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

Volume 12, Anthropology of Food & Nutrition

Read freely available introduction.

Feeding Anxieties

The Politics of Children’s Food in Poland

Zofia Boni

“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

Volume 6, New Anthropologies of Europe: Perspectives and Provocations

Read freely available introduction.

Food Connections

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

Volume 10, Anthropology of Food & Nutrition

Read freely available introduction.

Wine Is Our Bread

Labour and Value in Moldovan Winemaking

Daniela Ana

“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

Volume 9, Max Planck Studies in Anthropology and Economy

Read freely available introduction.

Bigger Fish to Fry

A Theory of Cooking as Risk, with Greek Examples

David E. Sutton

“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

Volume 3, New Anthropologies of Europe: Perspectives and Provocations

Read freely available introduction.

Matsutake Worlds

Edited by Lieba Faier and Michael J. Hathaway

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.

Volume 12, Studies in Social Analysis

Read freely available introduction.

Risk on the Table

Food Production, Health, and the Environment

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

Volume 21, Environment in History: International Perspectives

Read freely available introduction.

Nourishing Life

Foodways and Humanity in an African Town

Arianna Huhn

“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

Volume 7, Food, Nutrition, and Culture

Read freely available introduction.

Nourishing the Nation

Food as National Identity in Catalonia

Venetia Johannes

“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

Volume 44, New Directions in Anthropology

Read freely available introduction.

Food and Sustainability in the Twenty-First Century

Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives

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

Volume 9, Anthropology of Food & Nutrition

Read freely available introduction.

Burgundy

The Global Story of Terroir

Marion Demossier

“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

Volume 43, New Directions in Anthropology

Read freely available introduction.

Open Access

From Clans to Co-ops

Confiscated Mafia Land in Sicily

Theodoros Rakopoulos

“Rakopoulos admirably delineates the entwined positionalities of mafia, anti-mafia, workers, administrators, and the state.” • American Anthropologist

Volume 4, The Human Economy

Read freely available introduction, and more with Open Access.

Berghahn Books Food Series

Research Methods for Anthropological Studies of Food and Nutrition

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

Anthropology of Food & Nutrition

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.

A few more of our titles not shown above:

Food, Nutrition, and Culture

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

ENVIROMENT AND SOCIETY
Special Issue: Environment, Society, and Food (Vol. 2)

NATURE AND CULTURE
Certification Regimes in the Global Agro-Food System and the Transformation of the Nature-Society Relationship: Ecological Modernization or Modernization of Ecology?
Md Saidul Islam (Vol. 17, Issue 1)

Special Issue: Civil Society and Urban Agriculture in Europe (Vol. 13, Issue 3)

Open Access Articles

ANTHROPOLOGY OF THE MIDDLE EAST
Using Direct Observation to Examine the Relationship between Smoking and Consumption Patterns in a Middle Eastern Food Services Setting Richard A. Heiens and Larry P. Pleshko (Vol 18, Issue 1)

Special Issue: Food and Cooking in the Middle East and North Africa (Vol. 15, Issue 2)

ENVIROMENT AND SOCIETY
We All We Got: Urban Black Ecologies of Care and Mutual Aid
Ashanté M. Reese and Symone A. Johnson (Vol. 13)

FOCAAL
The “awkwardnesses” of aid and exchange: Food cooperative practices in austerity Britain
Celia Plender (Vol. 98)

SIBIRICA
Arctic “Laboratory” of Food Resources in the Allaikhovskii District of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia)
Nikolai Goncharov (Vol. 21, Issue 2)

SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY/ANTHROPOLOGIE SOCIALE
‘Eating with the People’: How a Chinese Hydropower Project Changed Food Experiences in a Lao Community*
Floramante SJ Ponce (Vol. 30, Issue 1)

Indigenous Peoples’ Day

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.

Enacted Relations

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.

Volume 15, ASAO Studies in Pacific Anthropology

Read freely available introduction.

Creation and Creativity in Indigenous Lowland South America

Anthropological Perspectives

Edited by Ernst Halbmayer and Anne Goletz

“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

Read freely available introduction.

Open Access

Indigenous Resurgence

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.

I Dreamed the Animals

Kaniuekutat: The Life of an Innu Hunter

Georg Henriksen

“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

Read freely available introduction.

About the Hearth

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

Nordic Paths to Modernity

Edited by Jóhann Páll Árnason and Björn Wittrock

“…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

Read freely available introduction.

Animism in Rainforest and Tundra

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

Read freely available introduction.

The 1926/27 Soviet Polar Census Expeditions

Edited by David G. Anderson

“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

Indigenous Peoples and Demography

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

Read freely available introduction.

Narrating the Future in Siberia

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

The New Media Nation

Indigenous Peoples and Global Communication

Valerie Alia

“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

Volume 2, Anthropology of Media

Read freely available introduction.

Hunters in the Barrens

The Naskapi on the Edge of the White Man’s World

Georg Henriksen

“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

Read freely available introduction.

Names and Nunavut

Culture and Identity in the Inuit Homeland

Valerie Alia

“…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

Read freely available introduction.

Cultivating Arctic Landscapes

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

MEET THE EDITORS: Dr. Samira Marty and Dr. Pardis Shafafi, the new Editors of Anthropology in Action

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 Action here.

AIA is a part of the Berghahn Open Anthro-Subscribe-to-Open initiative.

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World Breastfeeding Week

World Breastfeeding Week is held yearly from 1st to 7th of August in more than 120 countries. Being organized by WABA, WHO and UNICEF, the goal is to promote exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of life which yields tremendous health benefits, providing critical nutrients, protection from deadly diseases and fostering growth. To learn more please visit www.worldbreastfeedingweek.org

Berghahn is pleased to highlight our Fertility, Reproduction and Sexuality Series, as well as selection of other relevant titles and journal articles.

Continue reading “World Breastfeeding Week” →

Happy Birthday, Keith Hart!

22 June 2023 is Keith Hart’s 80th birthday and all at Berghahn wish him many happy returns of the day!

Keith Hart has edited, authored, or contributed to more than a dozen Berghahn titles, which is quite a record. He is also the founding editor of The Human Economy series, which has just published John D. Conroy’s Exchange and Markets in Early Economic Development.

Continue reading “Happy Birthday, Keith Hart!” →

Essential Reads for World Refugee Day

June 20th is designated World Refugee Day by the United Nations to bring awareness to the plight of millions of refugees throughout the world and also to honour their strength and perseverance.

Berghahn Books publishes many studies on the lives and the plights of refugees globally. Find our latest titles here along with a selection of classic Open Access titles. Berghahn Journals is also offering free access to related articles and special issues. See below for details.

Continue reading “Essential Reads for World Refugee Day” →