Category Archives: Blog
Mona-Lisa Wareka, Fiona McCormack & Bronwyn Isaacs: Alternative Anthropologies: Kete Aronui from the Waikato
As three anthropologists working at the University of Waikato in Hamilton, Aotearoa (New Zealand), we experience anthropology in our daily work in the context of our local histories, communities and politics. While many anthropologists are familiar with the critiques of anthropology that play out in the USA or Europe, the narratives and practices of anthropology […]
Görkem Akgöz: “The Sad Truth” Then and Now: Pasts and Presents of Danish Refugee Policy
This text was originally published in Swedish in Arbetar Historia (No.191-192, 2024). Special thanks to the editors for granting permission to republish. In 2015, during the peak of what became known as the “refugee crisis,” global attention turned towards an unexpected actor: Denmark. Long regarded as a liberal refuge and one of the first signatories […]
Quirin Rieder: Drinking tea with the IMF: sticking to prices and protesting inflation in Aliabad, Northern Pakistan
Aziz put down the newspaper and sighed. “This is bad, the situation is bad”. Sitting in his small tea shop, he had just finished his routine practice of reading out loud some articles from the local Urdu newspaper K2, that publishes on issues in Gilgit-Baltistan (one of the Pakistani parts of Kashmir). Normally this is […]
Daromir Rudnyckyj: When is inflation a problem?
Amidst the media frenzy in recent years regarding inflation, it is worth asking when, and for whom, is inflation actually a problem? As economists are quick to point out, in the conventional monetary system the upsides and downsides of inflation are not equally distributed across populations. To illustrate, those on fixed incomes or who hold […]
Alexandrine Boudreault-Fournier and Mélissa Gauthier: Inflation as pressure: coping mechanisms from Eastern Cuba
When the daily Miami-Santiago de Cuba flight landed in Cuba in May 2024, a passenger at the back of the plane shouted in Spanish: !Ya llegaron los dolares! “The dollars have arrived!” Everyone on board started laughing and clapping. In making that announcement, the Cuban passenger referred to the fact that visitors to Cuba were […]
Eva van Roekel: Money and ruin: hyperinflation and moral loss in the complex humanitarian crisis in Venezuela
A few months before the Covid-19 lockdowns were implemented globally I travelled to the border between Venezuela and Brazil for a stint of ethnographic fieldwork about the complex humanitarian crisis. By that time more than five million Venezuelans had left the country, and hyperinflation was mindboggling. Inflation had reached more than 9500%, making living and […]
Sian Lazar and Dolores Señorans: Argentina: inflation, monetary disorder, and political experimentation
The election of Javier Milei, a chainsaw-wielding anarcho-libertarian, to the Presidency of Argentina promises to cement Argentina’s status as a prime experimental site for inflation-tackling policies; it also highlights how experiences of inflation can prompt electorates to turn to radical political alternatives. The country has a long history of inflationary crisis, dating back to the 1970s, […]
Harry Pettit: Theft, resistance, and the struggle over cash circulation in Beirut’s platform economy
In October 2023, I sat with Hameed in a café in Hamra in Beirut, nearby his flat. He had just collected his salary, a stack of green 100,000 notes of Lebanese lira that amounted to 12 million (around 130 dollars): “look,” he said despondently, “this is not going to last more than two weeks, the […]
Alexandrine Royer: ‘In Kigali, life is expensive’: how everyday inflation talk gives voice to political and class frustrations
I encountered the phrase ‘in Kigali, life is expensive’ everywhere during my 15 months of fieldwork within the tech ecosystem of Rwanda. Official government figures stated that the price of common food staples had increased by 35% but residents estimated it to be much higher. Gas, electricity and housing prices were also soaring. My interlocutors […]
Steffen Köhn: Tokens of survival: the rise of crypto gaming in Cuba’s inflationary economy
Cuba is currently facing one of its most severe economic crises in decades. The island nation is contending with the compounded effects of a global pandemic, tightening U.S. sanctions, and its own mismanaged monetary reforms, all of which have created a perfect storm of high inflation, scarcity, and social unrest. As the Cuban peso (CUP) […]