Category Archives: Blog
Sanne Derks, Martijn Koster and Stephanie Ketterer: Crumbling down: Visualizing housing and imagining the state in Havana
“Ironic, isn’t it? Socialism is supposed to take care of the poor. But here in Cuba, if you don’t have money, you don’t have rights. I assure you that if I had 1,000 dollars, I would give 500 to one bureaucrat, and 500 to another, and within 72 hours they would show up with a […]
Luca Szücs: Populism in retreat? Lessons from Orbán’s downfall
On the night of 12 April, in the wake of the landslide victory of the Tisza Party, Hungary erupted into collective euphoria. Images from election night quickly spread across global media, capturing an outpouring of emotion as people took to the streets not only in Budapest, but across the country. Many who experienced that night, […]
Gergely Pulay: Post-feudalism and post-fascism at the end of the Orbán-regime in Hungary
With the global rise of illiberalism in the twenty-first century, the reputation of Viktor Orbán’s regime has far exceeded Hungary’s actual geopolitical and economic weight. During late-socialism and around 1989, high profile international discourse on Hungary was shaped by the relationship of Hungarian dissident intellectuals and their Western friends (Harms 2025). Under Orbán, Hungary’s friends […]
Don Kalb: Anthropological Use Value for an Anticapitalist Left
What a joy to be hugged, celebrated, and criticized by stellar colleagues who intimately know the stakes of invoking Marx in more than a fleeting way in anthropology; stakes that may be higher here than in other social disciplines. Theoretically and methodologically, anthropology is deeply imbricated in liberal and less liberal idealisms, with a stark […]
Ida Susser: The Value of a Left Culture in Combating Worthlessness
Let me first say that I have been waiting for Don Kalb’s new book for a long time! Kalb has been a leading theorist of the growth of the Right in Eastern Europe and elsewhere for many years. Many of us have heard him speak with an overarching and comprehensive vision of the conjunctures and […]
Sharryn Kasmir: Marxian Intimacy
Don Kalb first sent me Value and Worthlessness: The Rise of the Populist Right and Other Disruptions in the Anthropology of Capitalism in manuscript form. I had read most of the chapters in their original publications and welcomed the chance to revisit familiar arguments and scenes. What I did not anticipate was the emotional force […]
Jaume Franquesa: For an anthropology of capitalism
Having the opportunity to say a few words about the work of an esteemed colleague and an intellectual reference like Don Kalb is a rare privilege. Value and worthlessness: The rise of the populist right and other disruptions in the anthropology of capitalism is a fantastic book, worthy of discussion and celebration. It compiles some […]
Stefan Voicu: Huffing and Puffing with a Marxist Anthropologist
This text is not about the huffing and puffing you would expect. Although Don Kalb is Dutch, his new book, Value and Worthlessness: The Rise of the Populist Right and Other Disruptions in the Anthropology of Capitalism is about a different kind of huffing and puffing. Kalb borrows this expression from E.P. Thompson to foreground […]
Zoha Waseem: Creeping Digital Authoritarianism and (In)Security in Pakistan
Over the past decade, Pakistan has been steadily expanding its digital security, policing, and surveillance architecture, which is sensorially and materially altering how security is experienced and enacted. The expansion has occurred through an assemblage of securitising narratives, non-transparent deployment of internationally procured smart policing technology used for urban surveillance, and state lawfare targeting digital […]
Katharina Lange: Uses of the Past by Representatives of Syria’s tribal groups (asha’ir) – the Wulda example
On December 8, 2025, a brief video video was disseminated on You Tube, X and other social media to mark the first anniversary of the overthrow of the Asad regime. For just over three minutes, it showed a speech delivered by an older man wearing a black headband (‘agal) with a red-checkered headcloth and a […]