Category Archives: Features

Martin Fotta: Towards Anti-War Anthropology: On EASA, CEE and NATO

One of the casualties of Putin’s war on Ukraine will be European critical social science. While the war has instigated important discussions about ‘US-plaining’, ‘Westplaining’ and about Russian imperialism, we also see—so far in a clash of keyboards—a growing weaponization of scholarship. There are signs of growing censorship of those ideas that would not align […]

Alexander W. Anthony: Covid in the confines of the US

Introduction There is a calendar in my office which still hangs at March 2020; an artifact of the confusion and rush to ‘lockdown’ and to find shelter from the upcoming storm. I keep it there because it seems strange to take it down after so long, but also as a reminder that time is not […]

Andrew Orta: The MBA won’t die. But it is trying to disappear

Responding to a question about future of the MBA (Master of Business Administration) in the wake of the pandemic, the Dean of a top program recently suggested that “the future is bright,” but would require “a fundamental rethinking of business education. When the MBA was first established a century ago, there was a real sense […]

Don Nonini: Scoring the U.S. Working Class: Expropriation and Digitalization

Introduction Working-class people in the United States are now at a turning point – whether to compliantly return to the pre-Covid conditions capital set for them, or to shift toward a new militancy toward capitalism. Now, two years into the pandemic, they have suffered severe personal hardships due to Covid-related illness, hospitalizations and deaths, and […]

Ieva Snikersproge: Jobs or ecology? Why green growth is a pipe dream and how the pandemic could change this

My interest in the tensions between job preservation and ecological transition comes from my fieldwork among neorurals in Diois, a relatively isolated mountainous area in Southeastern France. The term neorurals (a literal translation from French néoruraux) refers to a diverse group of urban-to-rural migrants; one of its major components is back-to-the-landers who move to the […]

Andrew Flachs, Ankita Raturi, Juliet Norton, Valerie Miller, and Haley Thomas: Building back bigger or degrowing local food? US alternative food networks and post-corona agrarian economies

There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. – John Steinbeck Midway through The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck turns away from the dispossessed […]

Sandy Smith-Nonini: Energy Crises in the Time of Covid: Precarious Fossil Infrastructures

The spectacle of Russia invading Ukraine has elevated tensions over Europe’s access to natural gas and may herald a sea-change in regional geopolitics of energy. But prior to Putin’s war, energy crises played out across dozens of countries in 2021. Ramped up economic demand in the fourth quarter contributed to many, but there were forewarnings […]

Marc Edelman: Encirclement: Historical Roots of Putin’s Paranoia

“What’s going on inside Putin’s head?” “He’s insane.” Questions and declarations like these pepper discussions of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. While insanity appears an obvious — albeit broad — diagnosis, particularly to those in the West, even the most delusional psychosis has its internal logics and deep structures. And while we can never really get […]

Chris Hann: The Agony of Ukraine

After nearly two weeks of violent conflict in Ukraine, it is increasingly difficult to stand back and see the bigger picture. The West has lined up behind the charismatic President Zelensky, who has addressed parliaments in Brussels and Westminster to rapturous applause. In Britain, football stadia and Oxbridge colleges (including my own) have draped themselves […]

Andrew Sanchez: Work is Complicated: Thoughts on David Graeber’s Bullshit Jobs

There’s a Committee for Committees! A few weeks ago, I received a message from a colleague. It was the sort of funny thing that one friend says to another when their most ridiculous suspicions have been proven true. It said: “There’s a committee for the membership of committees!” My colleague discovered this while filling out […]