Author Archives: guestanthropologist
‘Ungoverned Spaces’?
by Magnus Marsden **Previously published at Hurst’s blog.** In the aftermath of the terrorist attack on Manchester, the term ‘ungoverned spaces’ has returned to the forefront of public debate about the significance of countries ranging from Syria to Afghanistan for so-called ‘Islamist’ terrorist networks. By instigating regime change in Muslim-majority states without making rigorous plans for their […]
Review: Academic Conferences as Neoliberal Commodities
by Fawzia Haeri Mazanderani ** Review first published on LSE Review of Books ** Academic Conferences as Neoliberal Commodities. Donald J. Nicolson. Palgrave Pivot. 2017. While rarely interrogated for the role that they play, academic conferences form a significant part in the construction of an academic career. Any aspiring, or indeed expiring, academic has at […]
Death in Mazar-I Sharif
by Magnus Marsden The brutal killing of up to 140 Afghan Army soldiers on April 22nd at an army base located near the city of Mazar-i Sharif in the north of Afghanistan raises profoundly troubling questions about the state of the country and wider region. The killings in Mazar come shortly after an attack (claimed […]
What a ballot-rigging conspiracy theory says about India’s toxic political climate
by Nayanika Mathur **Reprinted from The Conversation.** The headline story from India’s recent provincial elections was the staggering victory of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the state of Uttar Pradesh. But a range of politicians and observers, however, have claimed it wasn’t Modi’s charisma that won it for the BJP, but rigged voting […]
Who Is Ecotourism’s Winner – Nature, Culture or Capital?
by Sara Loh ‘Capitalism thrives on crisis. This is its engine of innovation and creativity’ – Sian Sullivan For neoliberal conservationists around the world, the environmental crisis has been produced (and will be saved) by none other than capitalism itself; for nature, ecotourism is one of many neat solutions that flattens and deadens nature into […]
Review: Ayya’s Accounts
**Review first published in Pacific Affairs 1926, Vol 89 (3): 696-698.** by Geert De Neve Ayya’s Accounts is a most wonderful product of listening, narrating and co-writing between Anand Pandian, an anthropologist of Tamil descent born and bred in the US, and his grandfather, Ayya – as he is respectfully called by the family – […]
Festival Culture: the Romanticisation of Informal Settlements?
by Tim Perkin The show ‘Borderline’, a PSYCHEdelight production, recently took part to an arts festival in the UK. The show portrayed a satirical account of the Calais Jungle, the informal refugee camp in France that hosted up to ten-thousand people. What made the political drama particularly poignant was that many of the members of […]