Journal Blog
Public Anthropologist is a project that includes this blog as well as an international peer reviewed journal. Public Anthropologist blog contains original posts, mainly organized into “Reflections” and “Conversations”, and other relevant information and news.
Articles for publication in Public Anthropologist journal can be submitted online through Editorial Manager, please click here.
To submit a post for this blog, please contact the editor, Antonio De Lauri: [email protected]
What can soldier humour tell us about international relations? To begin with, humour is a universal social practice …
The dominant discourse about war is that soldiers deployed and fighting in it dominate the landscape, and the animals which live in it. This paper focuses on the ways that Zimbabwean soldiers were made to understand the sacredness and spirituality of the Democratic Republic of Congo landscape: river water, swamps, snakes and ghosts by the local Congolese civilian people.
Commenting on my research for the WarFun project, someone once remarked that I must be using a very broad definition of fun — one that, apparently, included everything. In a way, they were right. But my usage of the term fun did not come from nowhere. It gradually emerged through engaging with the sources I had at my disposal.
I am currently wrapping up an essay film, Falling, about my fraught relationship with Pepe and his brother, two retired Argentine military officers whom I met during my doctoral research on crimes against humanity from the perspective of those who suffered and those who perpetrated political violence.
In the 9th episode of PUAN podcast, co-host Saumya Pandey interviews anthropologist Mark Goodale on the history of human rights. The humaneness of humanity has a history. And Goodale’s work shows that this history is foregrounded in relation to geopolitical and economic history. He asks if a distinction at all can be drawn between politics and economy …
Continue reading “Episode 9: The humanness of humanity has a history “
In the 8th episode of PUAN podcast, co-host Saumya Pandey interviews anthropologist Jeevan Sharma on how to write a history and ethnography of the speedy transformations in Nepal. Sharma’s work looks beyond disciplinary boundaries to study the political and economic inequities that has historically informed the social life in Nepal. There is no way of …
Continue reading “Episode 8: Writing history beyond disciplinary constraints “
In the book, Hurt Sentiments, historian Neeti Nair traces a political history of secularism, one which made a virtue out of hurt in twentieth-century India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Nair asks how a religious sentiment of hurt come to define the place of law, culture, ideologies, and belonging in this region. In constituent assembly proceedings, courtroom …
What happens to soldiers after they leave the military? From the Middle East to Africa, increasing numbers of demobilised soldiers have found work in private military and security companies or as security consultants, military trainers, and risk management professionals. While often in the news, sustained ethnographic research with this group is limited, and they are …