New Books in Anthropology

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• Down and Out in Utopia: Unemployment as Moral Education in Norway with Kelly McKowen (U Toronto Press, 2026)

  October 7, 2026 · 44 min

  Imagine that you have just lost your job. You wonder: “Who or what can I depend on now?” The answer, it turns out, varies significantly depending on where you live. In Norway, a small European social democracy, you would almost certainly…

• Valuing Nature at the Ends of the World: Natural Capital and Climate Disaster in Belize with Patrick M. Gallagher (Columbia UP, 2026)

  October 7, 2026 · 51 min

  Belize is often described as a “pristine” ecotourism destination with a landscape that is “naturally” valuable. Yet for much of the twentieth century, British Honduras—as the country was known under colonial rule—was seen as lacking value…

• Transient Becoming: Self-Improvement and Capitalist Virtuousness in Contemporary China with Gil Hizi (NUS Press, 2026)

  September 30, 2026 · 42 min

  How do individuals seek to become better persons in contemporary China? How do they navigate the complex demands of personal growth given the fragmentation of China’s moral landscape?  Gil Hizi’s careful ethnography on “soft skills”…

• Smuggling Law: Unsettled Sovereignties in Turkey's Kurdish Borderlands with Fırat Bozçalı (Stanford UP, 2025)

  September 29, 2026 · 1 hr 1 min

  The Kurdish-populated Wan/Van Province is a major smuggling hub between Turkey and Iran. Kurdish smugglers cross this 180-mile-long land border, transporting everyday consumer goods—fuel, tobacco, sugar, and tea—as well as more illicit…

• How Real Is Race?: Unraveling Race, Biology, and Culture with Carol C. Mukhopadhyay and Rosemary Henze (Rowman & Littlefield, 2025)

  September 28, 2026 · 1 hr 36 min

  Tune in to this discussion about How Real Is Race?: Unraveling Race, Biology, and Culture by Carol C. Mukhopadhyay, Rosemary Henze, and Yolanda T. Moses (Rowman & Littlefield, 2025) Biologically speaking, there is no such thing as…

• Welcome to the Journal of Autoethnography

  September 27, 2026 · 37 min

  In this episode, the editors of the Journal of Autoethnography offer an inside look at the journal, discussing its origin and revisiting notable articles that have contributed to the practice of autoethnography. The Journal of…

• Water Logics: Materialist Epistemologies for the Environmental Humanities with yasser elhariry and Edwige Tamalet Talbayev (U Virginia Press, 2026)

  September 26, 2026 · 47 min

  Water Logics: Materialist Epistemologies for the Environmental Humanities (U Virginia Press, 2026) examines the epistemological adjustments that take place when we make water the source and medium for thinking about the world. Eschewing…

• Spies and Other Pigeons: Hospitality and Hostility in Multispecies Pakistan with Muhammad A. Kavesh (U Washington, 2026)

  September 26, 2026 · 53 min

  Across Pakistan's rooftops, pigeon flyers devote enormous care and labor to birds that soar the skies, take part in competitions, and knit together communities otherwise divided by caste, class, language, and ethnicity. Spies and Other…