New Books in Anthropology

Social networks existed and shaped our lives long before Silicon Valley startups made them virtual. For over two decades economist Matthew O. Jackson, a professor at Stanford University, has studied how the shape of networks and our positions within them can affect us. In this interview, he explains how network structures can create poverty traps, exacerbate financial crises, and contribute to political polarization. He also explains how a new awareness of the role of networks has been used to improve financial regulation, promote public health knowledge, and guide vaccination strategy.Jackson also discusses how he first began to study networks, previously neglected by economists, and how economists can both learn from and contribute to the exciting cross-disciplinary dialogue among researchers from sociology, math, physics, and other fields.Professor Jackson's website provides free access to the chapter on contagion, of particular interest in this time of pandemic. For those who want to learn even more than the book can cover, he offers a free online course on the topic.Host Peter Lorentzen is an Associate Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of San Francisco, where he leads a new digital economy-focused Master's program in Applied Economics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/anthropology

Ajantha Subramanian and Lori Allen turn from hosts to interlocutors in an episode that ties a bow on our Violent Majorities conversations about Indian (episode 1) and Israeli (episode 2) ethnonationalism. The three friends discuss commonalities between Balmurli Natrajan’s charting of the "slippery slope towards a multiculturalism of caste" and Natasha Roth-Rowland's description of the "territorial maximalism" that has been central to Zionism. The role of overseas communities loomed large, as did the roots of ethnonationalism in the fascism of the 1920s, which survived, transmuted or merely masked over the subsequent bloody century, as other ideologies (Communism and perhaps cosmopolitan liberalism among them) waxed before waning.The conversation also examines the current-day shared playbook of the long-distance far-right ideologies of Zionism and Hindutva. And it concludes with a reflection on the suitability of the term fascism to describe such organizations and their historical forebears as well as other contemporary movements.Mentioned in the episode Snigdha Poonam’s recent book Dreamers investigates the “angry young men” engaged in Hindutvite attacks, including those who are economically and educationally marginalized, as well as those who resent what they see as their wrongful decline from privilege. Yuval Abraham’s “The IDF unit turning ‘Hilltop Youth” Settlers into Soldiers” is an investigation into how Israeli settlers from violent outposts are being inducted into a new military unit responsible for severe abuses of Palestinians across the West Bank. (However, in describing Israel’s “hilltop youth” as coming from “lower rungs,” Lori feels she may have overstated their marginalization. Although one report describes Israel’s hilltop youth as young men recruited from unstable homes, others point to the Israeli state’s unwillingness to stop them.) Daniel Kupfert Heller, Jabotinsky's Children, on the rise of the transnational youth movement, Betar. A correction: Jabotinsky was from Odessa (modern Ukraine), but much of his support was in Poland. RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) as the first institutionalization of the Hindutva project and a living remnant of 1920s fascism. The BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) arises as the political wing of the RSS and comes to prominence around the destruction of the Ayodhya Mosque. Lori's interview with Zachary Lockman in MERIP about historical changes in American Jewish attitudes towards Zionism. Ajantha refers to the argument in Natasha Roth-Rowland's recent dissertation ("'Not One Inch of Retreat': The Transnational Jewish Far Right, 1929-1996"), that the turn towards Zionism is linked in the US with a turn away from Communism as another transnational movement, waning as Zionism was waxing. Lori mentions the grim effects of the redefinition of anti-Semitism put forward in 2016 by the International Holocaust Remembrance Association (IHRA), one response to which is the 2020 Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism. Azad Essa, Hostile Homelands discusses Zionist support of Hindutva activism and lobbying in the US. One group that has modelled its congressional activism on that of the American Jewish Committee and AIPAC is the Hindu American Foundation. Ajantha mentions Hindutvites repurposing their online Islamophobia in support of Israel after Hamas’s October 7th military operation. Alberto Toscano, “The Long Shadow of Racial Fascism” discusses radical Black thinkers who have argued that racial slavery was a form of American fascism. Robert Paxton’s “The Five Stages of Fascism” makes the case that the KKK may be the earliest fascist organization. Recallable Books Alain Brossat and Sylvie Klingard, Revolutionary Yiddishland: A History of Jewish Radicalism. Joshua Cohen The Netanyahus (John spoke with Cohen about the novel in Recall This Book 110) Susan Bayly's Saints, Goddesses and Kings. Christophe Jaffrelot, Modi's India. Read transcript here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/anthropology

Paul Radin was one of the founding generation of American cultural anthropologists: A student of Franz Boas,  and famed ethnographer of the Winnebago. Yet little is known about Radin's life. A leftist who was persecuted by the FBI and who lived for several years outside of the United States, and a bohemian who couldn't keep an academic job, there are many chapters in Radin's life which have not been told. In Anthropology and Radical Humanism: Native and African American Narratives and the Myth of Race (Michigan State University Press, 2020), Jack Glazier tells the story of Radin's work at Fisk University in the late 1920s. During his three-year appointment, he and graduate student Andrew Polk Watson collected autobiographies and religious conversion narratives from elderly African Americans. That innovative, subject-centered research complemented like-minded scholarship by African American historians reacting against the disparaging portrayals of black people by white historians. In this book, Glazier describes Radin's commitment to documenting people's own stories as they told them and his respect for them as people as a form of 'radical humanism' and sets Paul Radin's findings within the broader context of Boasian anti-racism, African American culture, and his career-defining work among the Winnebago.In this episode of the podcast Jack Glazier talks to host Alex Golub about Radin and the Boasians, the influence of Charles S. Johnson at Fisk, and how contemporary activists might view the strengths and limitations of Radin's radical humanism. Alex Golub is an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/anthropology

The moorlands of Gascony are often considered one of the most dramatic examples of top-down rural modernization in nineteenth-century Europe. From an area of open moors, they were transformed in one generation into the largest man-made forest in Europe.Body and Tradition in Nineteenth-Century France: Félix Arnaudin and the Moorlands of Gascony, 1870-1914 (Oxford University Press) explores how these changes were experienced and negotiated by the people who lived there, drawing on the immense ethnographic archive of Felix Arnaudin (1844-1921).The study places the songs, stories, and everyday speech that Arnaudin collected, as well as the photographs he took, in the everyday lives of agricultural workers and artisans. It argues that the changes are were understood as a gradual revolution in bodily experiences, as men and women forged new working habits, new sexual relations, and new ways of conceiving of their own bodies.Rather than merely presenting a story of top-down reform, this is an account of the flexibility and creativity of the cultural traditions of the working population. William G. Pooley tells the story of the folklorist Arnaudin and the men and women whose cultural traditions he recorded, then uncovers the work carried out by Arnaudin to explore everyday speech about the body, stories of werewolves and shapeshifters, tales of animal cunning and exploitation, and songs about love and courtship.The volume focuses on the lives of a handful of the most talented storytellers and singers Arnaudin encountered, showing how their cultural choices reflect wider patterns of behaviour in the region, and across rural Europe. William G. Pooley, Lecturer in Modern European History, University of Bristol is a historian of France in the long nineteenth century, interested in popular and folk cultures.Rachel Hopkin PhD is a UK born, US based folklorist and radio produce. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/anthropology

Matthew Gutmann, author of 'Are Men Animals? How Modern Masculinity Sells Men Short,' discusses the harmful stereotypes of masculinity perpetuated by societal expectations. He explores the correlation between culture and biology in understanding male behavior and emphasizes the malleability of gender roles. The podcast also covers topics such as the dangers of drawing assumptions from the animal kingdom, cultural barriers faced by women in consuming adult content, the variations in fatherhood across cultures, and the concept of toxic masculinity.

There's so much discussion in the contemporary United States about marijuana. Debates focus on legalization and medicalization. Usually, Reefer Madness, Harry Anslinger, and race are brought into the conversation. But a big part of the larger marijuana story is missing. In Chris S. Duvall's new book, The African Roots of Marijuana (Duke University Press, 2019), he tells a distinctly non-American story that nevertheless has important lessons for current debates. Duvall helps us understand cannabis as a crop, commodity, and tool in African culture and in the history of slavery. He showcases the plant-person relationship and offers valuable lessons about colonialism and rise of 'big marijuana' in 2019.Lucas Richert is an associate professor in the School of Pharmacy at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He studies intoxicating substances and the pharmaceutical industry. He also examines the history of mental health. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/anthropology

How social scientists' disagreements about their key words and distinctions have been misconceived, and what to do about itSocial scientists do research on a variety of topics--gender, capitalism, populism, and race and ethnicity, among others. They make descriptive and explanatory claims about empathy, intelligence, neoliberalism, and power. They advise policymakers on diversity, digitalization, work, and religion. And yet, as Gabriel Abend points out in Words and Distinctions for the Common Good: Practical Reason in the Logic of Social Science (Princeton UP, 2023), they can't agree on what these things are and how to identify them. How to tell if something is a religion or a cult or a sect? What is empathy? What makes this society a capitalist one? Disputes of this sort arise again and again in the social sciences.Abend argues that these disagreements have been doubly misconceived. First, they conflate two questions: how a social science community should use its most important words, and what distinctions it should accept and work with. Second, there's no fact of the matter about either. Instead, they're practical reason questions for a community, which aim at epistemically and morally good outcomes. Abend calls on social science communities to work together on their words, distinctions, and classifications. They must make collective decisions about the uses of words, the acceptability of distinctions, and the criteria for assessing both. These decisions aren't up to individual scholars; the community gets the last word. According to Abend, the common good, justice, and equality should play a significant role in the logic of scientific research.Gabriel Abend is professor of sociology at University of Lucerne and the author of The Moral Background: An Inquiry into the History of Business Ethics (Princeton). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/anthropology

Benjamin Lorr, author of 'Hell-Bent,' investigates the dark side of American supermarkets. He explores the secrets of Trader Joe's, the challenges in the trucking industry, and the struggles faced by small food producers.

Hongwei Bao’s book is a thoughtful exploration of gay identity and queer activism in China. This work stems from the term and identity tongzhi, which means “comrade” and in more recent decades has been a popular term to refer to gay people and sexual minorities more broadly. Based on ethnographic research and a solid theoretical base, Queer Comrades: Gay Identity and Tongzhi Activism in Postsocialist China (NIAS Press, 2018) explores queer identity, activism, and governmentality in China, where negotiations between socialism and neoliberalism play out. From a cultural studies perspective, Bao examines a variety of topics from queer spaces in urban centers such as Shanghai, Beijing, and Guangzhou to conversion therapy diaries to queer film festivals. This book speaks to a wide variety of humanities and social science fields and will appeal to those interested in a fresh study of postsocialist China, gay identity formation, activism, and LGBT studies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/anthropology

Kathleen Klaus, Assistant Professor of Politics at the University of San Francisco has written a terrific book, Political Violence in Kenya: Land, Elections, and Claim-Making published in 2020 by Cambridge University Press. Kathleen’s book is richly researched and beautifully written. She draws on 15 months of survey and interview methods to center the politics of elites in crafting land narratives that lead—or not—to electoral violence. Kathleen’s book is a great example of mixed methods as a way to understand and explain what are the conditions in which individuals’ can be primed for physical violence. Political Violence in Kenya is a fascinating book that raises novel questions about the role of contentious politics in framing elite political outcomes, as well as how elites coordinate with ordinary people to try to instigate violence.For those wanting to dig deeper into Kenya politics or electoral violence, Dr. Klaus recommends:-The Elephant Blog.-The Journal of Peace Research: Special Issue on Electoral Violence, January 2020.-Violence in African Elections: Between Democracy and Big Man Politics, edited by Bjarnesen and Söderburg Kovacs (2019).-Voting in Fear: Electoral Violence in Sub-Saharan Africa, edited by Bekoe (2012) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/anthropology