Thing theories, object-human recursion, and materiality already seem familiar and domesticated. All to the good, as it’s often not until the fickle winds of theoretical fashion shift that the most serious work can begin. We are still just scratching the surface in discerning and understanding the agencies or other capacities of things, and their limits—whether theorizing them, understanding their implications from different disciplinary perspectives, or documenting their configurations in the world. Many of this issue’s essays undertake the reckoning of things and the challenges they pose of value, risk, calculation, and commensurability. None of the essays are predictable, none follow well-worn paths.
Tag: featured
Land and Labor Regimes
Tania Li and R. Alan Covey in conversation about land and labor regimes in Indonesia and Peru. In each case, there are elaborate social worlds that must be neutralized, manipulated, or destroyed before they can produce workers. In 16th century Peru, people are turned into peasants by Spanish taxation and land tenure policies. In colonial and contemporary Southeast Asia, plantation labor becomes more or less free as local subsistence systems, global markets, and modes of state investment change.
A CSSH Introduction to Kinship
Geoffrey Hughes, Anthropology, London School of Economics
Things I’ve learned from working at CSSH, or How to Interact with a Top-Tier Academic Journal
Laura C. Brown, Department of Anthropology, University of PittsburghCSSH Editorial Assistant, 2009–2010 Many CSSH editorial assistants are world-class ethnographers. In 2010, Laura Brown proved she was one of these gifted observers. As a teaching guide for her successors and as parting counsel to manuscript submitters (and reviewers) everywhere, she produced the following account of how…