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Public Anthropologist is a project that includes this blog as well as an international peer reviewed journal. Public Anthropologist blog contains original posts, mainly organized into “Reflections” and “Conversations”, and other relevant information and news.

Articles for publication in Public Anthropologist journal can be submitted online through Editorial Manager, please click here.

To submit a post for this blog, please contact the editor, Antonio De Lauri: antonio.delauri@cmi.no

Reflections

Songs of Fire and Rice: Post-Electoral Song Protests in Mozambique

A Song Namacurra onoloba nikayedhoNamacurra asks for helpFrelimo onoguliya mathaka na atxinaFrelimo is selling our lands to the ChineseNafuna minivedele manera adhouweWe want to find a way for them to leaveAraujo we Araujo we Araujo weeAraujo, Araujo, AraujoAraujo kafiya onivune okuno onamacurraAraujo, come here to NamacurraFrelimo onoguliya mathaka na atxinaFrelimo is selling our lands to …

African agency in response to EU externalization efforts

Diplomatic pressures on countries in West Africa to cooperate on migration-related issues has been high, and growing, in recent years. Numerous policy initiatives underscore this, going back to the 1992 Declaration on Principles Governing External Aspects of Migration Policy, which included the idea of EU return agreements with countries of origin and transit. Most recently, …

Conversations

Episode 9: The humanness of humanity has a history 

In the 9th episode of PUAN podcast, co-host Saumya Pandey interviews anthropologist Mark Goodale on the history of human rights. The humaneness of humanity has a history. And Goodale’s work shows that this history is foregrounded in relation to geopolitical and economic history. He asks if a distinction at all can be drawn between politics and economy …

Episode 8: Writing history beyond disciplinary constraints 

In the 8th episode of PUAN podcast, co-host Saumya Pandey interviews anthropologist Jeevan Sharma on how to write a history and ethnography of the speedy transformations in Nepal. Sharma’s work looks beyond disciplinary boundaries to study the political and economic inequities that has historically informed the social life in Nepal. There is no way of …

Feelings of hurt and hate in post-partition South Asia: A Conversation with Neeti Nair

In the book, Hurt Sentiments, historian Neeti Nair traces a political history of secularism, one which made a virtue out of hurt in twentieth-century India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Nair asks how a religious sentiment of hurt come to define the place of law, culture, ideologies, and belonging in this region. In constituent assembly proceedings, courtroom …

Between privilege and precarity: European soldiers remobilising as private security contractors in Africa. An interview with Jethro Norman

What happens to soldiers after they leave the military? From the Middle East to Africa, increasing numbers of demobilised soldiers have found work in private military and security companies or as security consultants, military trainers, and risk management professionals. While often in the news, sustained ethnographic research with this group is limited, and they are …