Much has been said regarding the global flows of information that are characteristic of modernity; it has been frequently stressed that these conduits are so deeply embedded that local or national environments may be imagined as having a global span. Thus, while we are now well aware that the imagination…

The authors examine the efforts towards implementing minimum labor standards in global supply chains through the lens of corporate social responsibility

In this article, Jasmijn Boeken, explores in which ways the defining characteristics of the different zones can be found in the digital sphere.

Art of Captivity / Arte del Cautiverio tells a compelling story about Central America's drug war through a series of rich photographs. The book, which is entirely bilingual in English and Spanish, focuses on Guatemala, which has become the primary point of transit for cocaine produced in the Andes and…

Special Issue in: Visual Anthropology, Volume 29, Issue 3, 2016

Two previous English translations of this classic essay by Georg Simmel have been in wide circulation, shaping the worldwide reception of Simmel’s urban theor

How do borderland dwellers living along militarised frontiers negotiate regimes of state security and their geopolitical location in everyday life? What might 'freedom' mean to those who do not resist captivity engendered by borders? Focusing on the predicaments of a double-minority, Radhika Gupta examines…

Andrew Littlejohn published the article 'Ruins for the future: Critical allegory and disaster governance in post-tsunami Japan' in American Ethnologist about the ruins left by Japan's 2011 tsunami.

Policy Note Insecurity in Burkina Faso – beyond conflict minerals: The complex links between artisanal gold mining and violence

The double issue of kritisk etnografi – Swedish Journal of Anthropology, has a question: Is Europe skilling for sustainable food? The two guest editors, Professor Maris Boyd Gillette from the University of Gothenburg and Professor Cristina Grasseni from Leiden University, have convened an esteemed…

Over time Dutch and Indonesian composers, performers and music scholars have inspired each other and they continue to do so. The presence of the Dutch in the Netherlands East-Indies and Indonesia, but also the existence of large diasporic communities in the Netherlands have contributed to a mutual exchange…

This ethnographic exploration of anticipation published in the Journal of the Royal Anthropology Institute draws on fieldwork among people with dementia and their families in the Netherlands.

Book launch

Study information, Admission & Application Workshop

On Tuesday 10 September 2024 May Shaddel Basir successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

On Tuesday 3 September 2024 Straton Papagianneas successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

Alumni event, Brussels

Lecture

Conference

Lecture, Global Histories of Knowledge Seminar

The legitimacy and justice of political institutions and arrangements are among the perennial and defining subjects of the field of political theory. Political theorists who participate in the research cluster ‘Legitimacy and Justice’ engage in both systematic and historical reflection on the ways legitimacy…

The Belgian elections are over. Now it is up to the formateur to form a cabinet, but that is difficult. Fauke Deceuninck, program leader of Politics and Governance at the Center for Professional Learning, explains to Speechmakers why that is.

This study employs a comparative perspective to identify generic and specific qualities of petitions and petitioning. It charts the chronological development of petitioning practices over centuries. The interdisciplinary approaches provide range of conceptual and methodological expertise for reade…

Study information

Study information

Study information

Presenting case studies by both senior and emerging scholars, it makes mandatory reading for anyone interested in the challenges of governance, citizenship and development faced by the people of India’s North East.

Discover the origins and organization of palliative care in various institutions through Natashe Lemos Dekker's 2023 article in The Open Encyclopedia of Anthropology. Explore the connection between palliative care and a

Article by Annemarie Samuels in History and Anthropology

Sonic Modernities situates Southeast Asian popular music in specific socio-historical settings, hoping that a focus on popular culture and history may shed light on how some people in a particular part of the world have been witnessing the emergence of all things modern.

Dividing Worlds: Tsunamis, Seawalls, and Ontological Politics in Northeast Japan

Dementia is widely considered a progressive condition associated with changes in cognitive capacities, which promotes the idea that people with dementia need to anticipate end-of-life care preferences. There is a growing body of interventions meant to support advance care planning (ACP) for people with…

Jasmijn Rana demonstrates in the article 'Secular-religious self-improvement: Muslim women’s kickboxing in the Netherlands' that young Muslim women who kickbox develop agentive selves by challenging gender norms and living out their religious subjectivities.

Cultural Anthropologist Erik de Maaker published, together with Monica Janoswki (School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London), Stories across Borders: Myths of Origin and Their Contestation in the Borderlands of South and Southeast Asia in Southeast Asian Studies (SEAS).

With textnets it is possible to visualize and analyze textual data in novel ways.

'Food Citizens? An anthropological project on collective food procurement in European cities

'Collaboration, Mediation, and Comparison: Epistemological Tools from Theory-driven Fieldwork Practice' is written by Cristina Grasseni and published in Anthrovision.

Taking as a point of departure the Italian American community in Boston and its process of collective remembrance surrounding Saint Anthony’s Feast, we address the limits and potential of montage.

In the article Multimodality: Reshaping Anthropology, Mark Westmoreland describes how multimodality provides anthropologists with a new perspective on how we conduct research, produce scholarship, teach students, and interact with diverse audiences.

Ironies of Solidarity is an ethnographic study of how financial products and services affect inequalities and conflicts in South Africa.

Irene Moretti published the article Kin Enough in Social Analysis, The International Journal of Anthropology.

Across Europe, new welfare programs exemplify attempts to govern through community. This article asks how such governing through community is done in practice. Drawing on comparative insights from fieldwork with parenting support professionals and volunteers in Amsterdam, Milan, and Paris, we document…

In this article, Samuels elaborates the concept of narrative navigation to analyze the subjective and intersubjective ways in which people struggle through experiences of illness by constructing multiple, ambiguous and non-linear narratives that may continuously change, as they reposition themselves…

In 'The Spirit of Matter', Peter Pels explores the significance of emotionally evocative objects, challenging the denial of their existence in modern 'mind over matter' ideology.

This paper explores how citizenship is enacted and experienced in welfare encounters for Egyptian migrant parents in Paris, Amsterdam, and Milan, highlighting the importance of social citizenship and personal interactions in shaping belonging.

The presence of religious idioms in people’s responses to vulnerability and misfortune is not unique to Aceh, or to Indonesia. Yet the scale of the tsunami coupled with the historically deeply ingrained presence of religion in Acehnese everyday life has magnified religious discourses on misfortune,…

Announcement of the publication of Vamping the Stage: Female Voices of Asian Modernities, the first book-length study of women, modernity, and popular music in Asia (University of Hawai'i Press, 2017).

'Skill, craft, and poiesis-intensive innovation' is written by Cristina Grasseni and is published in FormAkademisk.