In the 1960s, the descent versus alliance debate dominated kinship studies-anthropologists wanted to determine
what relationship offered the best analytic lens for understanding how social groups were formed.
Those who favored descent felt that the most relevant question to ask was how groups constituted and reconstituted
themselves across…[Read more]

In the 1960s, the descent versus alliance debate dominated kinship studies-anthropologists wanted to determine
what relationship offered the best analytic lens for understanding how social groups were formed.
Those who favored descent felt that the most relevant question to ask was how groups constituted and reconstituted
themselves across…[Read more]

In the 1960s, the descent versus alliance debate dominated kinship studies-anthropologists wanted to determine
what relationship offered the best analytic lens for understanding how social groups were formed.
Those who favored descent felt that the most relevant question to ask was how groups constituted and reconstituted
themselves across…[Read more]

In the contemporary U.S. workplace, corporate personhood is increasingly becoming
the metaphor structuring how job seekers are supposed to present themselves as
employable. If one takes oneself to be a business, one should also take oneself to
be an entity that requires a brand. Some ethnographic questions arise when job
seekers try to embody…[Read more]

This volume began with the question: what analytical possibilities can scholarly
work on language ideologies offer the study of media? Studying media ideologies
is not new, but calling the metalanguage that emphasizes the technology or bodies
through which we communicate a “media ideology” is. By examining media ideologies,
the authors in thi…[Read more]

Exhibition, World Fairs, Harvard Art Museum, November 16, 2014 – May 10, 2015.

The late medieval wall of Rimini is an important monumental presence in the present-day fabric of the city, bounding its historic center. However, even though a good knowledge exists through written sources about it, the subject has not been checked enough from the archaeological point of view. This article intends to take stock of the situation…[Read more]

The 15th Jakarta Biennale’s curatorial premise, Siasat (Tactic) identified artists and art works which demonstrated how individuals and communities, especially in urban Indonesia, cope with social inequality, environmental pressure, and poverty. The resulting exhibition raised questions relevant to recent scholarship around relational aesthetics a…[Read more]

Traditional society cosmology is an instrument of territorial, space and buildings order as a whole language.Megalithic Nias was found with its organizational and architectural concept arranged with its cosmology.The belief of three worlds/cosmos: upper world or ancestor’s world, human world, and underworld, is local cult approved as local…[Read more]

The 15th Jakarta Biennale’s curatorial premise, Siasat (Tactic) identified artists and art works which demonstrated how individuals and communities, especially in urban Indonesia, cope with social inequality, environmental pressure, and poverty. The resulting exhibition raised questions relevant to recent scholarship around relational aesthetics a…[Read more]

Local wisdom producing genius loci is a conceptual idea that lives, grows and develops in the society. It develops continually and in relation with society awareness, organizing sacral and profane parts of their lives. Genius loci in traditional settlements can be found in the different pattern and order corresponding to traditional values of the…[Read more]

Kampong Dago Pojok is a local neighborhood within the Dago area of Bandung, an area well-known for its cultural and artistic activities which have contributed significantly to the development of Bandung as a ‘creative city’ in the early 2000s. This paper draws on a participatory research method to explore the lived experiences and creative pra…[Read more]

Traditional society cosmology is an instrument of territorial, space and buildings order as a whole language.Megalithic Nias was found with its organizational and architectural concept arranged with its cosmology.The belief of three worlds/cosmos: upper world or ancestor’s world, human world, and underworld, is local cult approved as local…[Read more]

Local wisdom producing genius loci is a conceptual idea that lives, grows and develops in the society. It develops continually and in relation with society awareness, organizing sacral and profane parts of their lives. Genius loci in traditional settlements can be found in the different pattern and order corresponding to traditional values of the…[Read more]

Kampong Dago Pojok is a local neighborhood within the Dago area of Bandung, an area well-known for its cultural and artistic activities which have contributed significantly to the development of Bandung as a ‘creative city’ in the early 2000s. This paper draws on a participatory research method to explore the lived experiences and creative pra…[Read more]

Theorists of civil society often view civil society as a site for democratic education.
Civil society is supposed to assist democratic practice by offering people contexts in which
they practice promoting the common good. This article, following Nina Eliasoph ‘s intervention,
takes this to be a claim requiring ethnographic exploration. The…[Read more]

In this article, I explore how people use the culture concept in legislatures to understand the minorities they legislate for
and about. I focus on recent debates in the New Zealand parliament over whether the indigenous Ma¯ ori are a cultural group or a racial
group. A Westminster parliament system encourages these debates, in which political…[Read more]

This article suggests that linguistic anthropology offers useful
analytical tools to documentary studies because both fields wrestle with questions
that emerge from the circulation of indexical representations that are putatively
constructing truths. Linguistic anthropology is deeply concerned with the ways
that texts circulate, and how this…[Read more]

In 1989 New Zealand legislators revised their child welfare legislation, partially
in response to M¯aori and Pacific Island critiques that the previous state-centered
regime had failed to take into account their culturally distinctive techniques for being
a family and had failed to support culturally specific practices of decision making
and…[Read more]

In this essay, I discuss how Niklas Luhmann’s systems theory might be useful for anthropologists. After providing a summary of Luhmann’s theory, I address the quandaries anthropologists might face when deploying a theory that presumes systems without selves. I also recount how other anthropologists have made use of Luhmann’s systems theory to an…[Read more]