'The Right to Vote' and Catalan Independence

Politicians in Barcelona are preparing for a new political battle as the Catalan nationalists' referendum is bound to take place on 1 October. Will it lead to new court cases because the referendum is unconstitutional?

Gerard Persoon • July 11, 2017 • 2 comments

Positioning Science: Post-Truth, Back to the Facts, or Morality?

The authority of knowledge, science, and academic institutions is not as self-evident as it maybe was in the past. How to position as scholar in a post-truth world? Should we deal with these challenges by simply studying facts, as some scholars argue?

Erik Bähre • June 29, 2017 • 4 comments

Provisioning Activism

An increasing body of literature identifies and compares various strategies for alternative provisioning, namely procuring food and other goods and services in a consciously oriented way. Why is this anthropologically interesting?

Cristina Grasseni • June 07, 2017

4 May: Who Do We Commemorate Today?

It is a recurring pattern in the Netherlands as we reach 4 and 5 May: Who is included and who is excluded from whom we commemorate? Let’s examine indirect knowledge transmission in South Africa and how this translates into the Dutch context.

Maike Lolkema • May 04, 2017

How to Deal with Puzzling Brokers in Ethnographic Fieldwork?

As anthropologists, we rely heavily on gatekeepers. They are crucial figures in facilitating our access to the field and they might profoundly influence our ethnographic experience. But what to do when your main gatekeeper behaves like a puzzling broker?

Irene Moretti • April 21, 2017

‘No Cash, Friend. Digital India.’ 48 Hours in the Indian Cashless Economy

In November last year, without any previous warning, prime minister Modi declared 86% of India’s currency worthless overnight. Is India ready for a cashless economy? I put it to the test and spent two days navigating New Delhi without cash.

Tim van de Meerendonk • April 07, 2017

Moved by the Spirit: Sensing the Divine in a Dutch Pentecostal Church

God is disappearing from the Netherlands, according to a 2016 survey. But this is misleading. New religious movements such as Pentecostalism are growing worldwide. For my MA, I made a film about 3 months’ fieldwork in a Dutch Pentecostal community.

Annelise Reid • March 31, 2017

Dinner Time at the ‘Vulture Restaurant’

Feeding vultures with carcasses of dead cows is an innovative way out of two perceived problems in Nepal: how to get rid of unproductive, but still sacred cows, and how to help the endangered vultures to prevent them from going extinct.

Gerard Persoon and Babu Ram Lamichhane • March 21, 2017 • 2 comments

A discourse of displacement: the local infrastructure of populism

The allegedly disenfranchised whites play a central role in this year's election cycle in Europe. How are we to understand the populist moment and what role can ethnography play in these analyses? Part 2 of Paul Mepschen's populism blog series.

Paul Mepschen • March 13, 2017