I began interviewing authors of fabulous new anthropology books for this space back in 2016. While completing 11 interviews, I also amassed a backlog of more terrific books whose authors I planned to interview. One thing led to another, and my embarrassingly accumulating backlog fell hostage to a pandemic. I\u2019ve finally harnessed my guilt and bundled these beauties into a group. No author interviews this time (who has time for that in a pandemic?), but below, you\u2019ll find capsule descriptions of why I love every entry in this archive. <\/p>\n
To be sure, my selection is idiosyncratic. I don\u2019t claim that these books are the only works in anthropology worth reading that were published in the past few years. Yet, individually, each of these books grabbed my attention because of its brilliant analysis of some topic(s) I judge to have critical importance to the world. Plus, the writing in all these books is oh-so-readable. Collectively, they remind us: Anthropology is not only alive and well, the discipline continues to offers unique insights into vexing issues in ways that only long-term immersion can produce. <\/p>\n
Acknowledgments<\/em>: In curating this collection, I\u2019m inspired by Philip Graham<\/a>\u2018s \u201cSome Books You May Have Missed\u201d posts for the literary\/arts magazine, Ninth Letter<\/em>, for which he serves as Editor-at-Large. (You can read his latest literary rundown of great new fiction and creative non-fiction here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n So, here goes.<\/p>\n *<\/strong><\/p>\n C. Richard King, Redskins: Insult and Brand<\/em> (University of Nebraska Press) <\/strong> <\/p>\n In the aftermath of George Floyd\u2019s murder, one of the many critical lessons that at least some of white America has learned is this: Representation matters. In that sense, Richard King<\/a>\u2018s brilliant book provided an overdue argument that at least one sports team has finally heard. In 2020, the Washington Redskins at last acknowledged the racist foundation to their team\u2019s name, which they changed (temporarily) to the Washington Football Team (with a new name soon to be announced here<\/a>). The placeholder name may be boring\u2014 but boring is better than offensive. For its part, King\u2019s scholarly exercise in a theoretically and historically informed argument can now be considered a paragon of engaged, critical anthropology<\/strong>. A review in the Chicago Tribune <\/em>called this a \u201cmust-read book.\u201d<\/p>\n Publisher\u2019s webpage here<\/a>.<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n Amy Starecheski, Ours to Lose: When Squatters Became Homeowners in New York City<\/em> <\/strong>(University of Chicago Press)<\/strong><\/p>\n Over the past two pandemic years, real estate stories have dominated the news, from personal tragedies (eviction stories following job loss) to personal triumphs (the privileged few scooping up \u201cdeals\u201d outside major metropolitan areas). Lurking behind those individual tales chronicling the human joys and costs of gentrification lies a broader story of economic trends (falling prices in some markets, skyrocketing prices in others). In that sense, this book by anthropologist\/oral historian Amy Starecheski<\/a> remains more timely than ever. A beautifully crafted narrative balances individual tales of urban squatters\u2019 experiences across three decades of New York City\u2019s increasingly unaffordable housing market with \u201cbig-picture\u201d trends of macroeconomic, political, and legal developments in New York and beyond. This book contains so many lessons about where and how to make a livable space for \u201chome.\u201d<\/strong> A \u201crecommended\u201d book by Choice<\/em>.<\/p>\n Publisher\u2019s webpage here<\/a>.<\/p>\n *<\/strong><\/p>\n Rosa De Jorio, Cultural Heritage in Mali in the Neoliberal Era<\/em> (University of Illinois Press) <\/strong><\/p>\n Rosa De Jorio<\/a>\u2018s early research in West Africa concerned women\u2019s political participation in Mali.\u00a0 In this book, De Jorio focuses on the same country but has switched gears to focus on cultural heritage.\u00a0 Political scientists rarely pay attention to artistic and cultural performances, while art historians rarely focus on political structures.\u00a0 In a broad sense, this book might be characterized as an engagement of political perspectives with humanistic spaces.\u00a0 As such, I take this work\u2014based on careful field research in urban Mali over the course of 16 years\u2014as a model for how scholars working elsewhere might unpack the questions De Jorio asks here surrounding the politics of culture and the culture of politics<\/strong>. Jean-Loup Amselle calls this book \u201cin the tradition of Michel Foucault\u2019s work.\u201d The title appeared in the Interpretations of Culture in the New Millenium<\/a> series (now closed), edited by Norman E. Whitten, Jr.<\/p>\n Publisher\u2019s webpage here<\/a>.<\/p>\n *<\/strong><\/p>\n Jane C. Desmond, Human-Animal Relations in Art, Science, and Everyday Life<\/em> (University of Chicago Press)<\/strong><\/p>\n Some years ago, I made a case for an anthropology of infancy.\u00a0 In this book, Jane Desmond<\/a> makes something of a similar case for an anthropology of animals.\u00a0 In both arenas, subjects communicate with us in ways that we adults\/humans understand only partially, and with difficulty\u2014as if through a scrim.\u00a0 Of course, the same can be said for all communication among human adults . . . but the barriers appear more extreme and daunting with both human infants and non-human animals.\u00a0 In a provocative set of thematically linked essays (think<\/em>: pet cemeteries, taxidermy, roadkill), Desmond makes a persuasive case for developing a robust ethnography of non-human animals<\/strong> and, perhaps more broadly for an inter-species ethnography<\/strong>.\u00a0 An NPR review called it \u201can important and moving book.\u201d The title appears in the terrific new Animal Lives<\/a> series at Chicago edited by Desmond.<\/p>\n Publisher\u2019s webpage here<\/a>.<\/p>\n *<\/strong><\/p>\n Jennifer Cole and Christian Groes (eds.), Affective Circuits: African Migrations to Europe and the Pursuit of Social Regeneration<\/em> (University of Chicago Press)<\/strong><\/p>\n If the predominant narrative of Covid-19 emphasized immobility, that memo didn\u2019t reach African migrants. Over the past two years, refugees fleeing Africa\u2019s multiple postcolonial catastrophes have continued to seek more hospitable living spaces. This rich collection co-edited by Jennifer Cole<\/a> and Christian Groes<\/a> thus speaks to continuing hemispheric challenges, even as it centers personal experience. Moving discussions humanize the dehumanizing images, statistics, and political directives that dominate so much discussion of African migrants in Europe. Eleven case studies range from intimate topics such as child fostering, bi-national marriages, and coming-of-age rituals to explorations of the ways that government actors, laws, and policies shape migrants\u2019 lives.\u00a0 As such, this volume serves as a welcome, \u201cbottom-up\u201d corrective to the \u201ctop-down\u201d trope of \u201cmigrant crisis\u201d <\/strong>that too often frames both government policies and journalists\u2019 stories coming out of the EU. The book won the Most Notable Recent Collection Award from the Council on Anthropology and Reproduction<\/a>.<\/p>\n Publisher\u2019s webpage here<\/a>.<\/p>\n *<\/strong><\/p>\n Andrew Bank, Pioneers of the Field: South Africa\u2019s Women Anthropologists<\/em> (Cambridge<\/strong> University Press)<\/strong><\/p>\n The notion of a \u201cscholarly canon\u201d is a bit of an oxymoron. Do what passed as the great works in any given field in the past still deserve pride of place today? By contrast, in re-reading \u201cthe classics\u201d year after year, what hidden treasures might we have overlooked because of unconscious biases surrounding what \u201ccounts\u201d as quality scholarship . . . and who \u201ccounts\u201d as serious scholars? The brilliant scholars who have become so demonized by the U.S. right of late in promoting critical race theory prompt us to recognize the importance of regularly revisiting \u201cthe canon,\u201d to rethink our understanding of history with new eyes and new questions. In Pioneers of the Field<\/em>, historian of science Andrew Bank<\/a> has done our discipline a great favor by reminding us of six brilliant women scholars of the early\/mid-20th century whose work had a major impact both within and beyond South Africa. If you\u2019re an Africanist up on your early British social anthropology, you might at least have heard of Audrey Richards, Monica Wilson, and Hilda Kuper, but if Winifred Hoernl\u00e9, Ellen Hellman, and Eileen Krige weren\u2019t even on your radar, they will be now. Elizabeth Colson called this volume a \u201cmajor contribution to intellectual history<\/strong>.\u201d No History of Anthropology course should neglect this correct-the-record book.<\/p>\n Publisher\u2019s webpage here<\/a>.<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n Ana Mariella Bacigalupo, Thunder Shaman: Making History with Mapuche Spirits in Chile and Patagonia<\/em> (University of Texas Press)<\/strong><\/p>\n There\u2019s a good reason this marvelous book received Honorable Mention for the 2017 PROSE Award for Anthropology offered by the Association of American Publishers. Ana Mariella Bacigalupo<\/a> challenges stereotypical images of shamans as either extinct or anachronistic religious practitioners long left behind by history. Based on extraordinary research that Bacigalupo conducted from 1991 to 2015, the book serves, at once, as a biography of a single Mapuche shaman who accepted the author into her life in a deep, cross-cultural friendship; and an argument for a re\u00ebxamination of how we define what counts as \u201creligion\u201d in the modern world<\/strong>. <\/p>\n Publisher\u2019s webpage here<\/a>.<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n Naomi Leite, Unorthodox Kin: Portuguese Marranos and the Global Search for Belonging<\/em> (University of California Press)<\/strong><\/p>\n When I lived in Lisbon in 2006-07, I found myself shocked and appalled at the extent to which the nation\u2019s long, rich, and traumatic Jewish history had been rendered virtually invisible. In this riveting book, anthropologist Naomi Leite <\/a>profiles a small group of Portuguese who are actively reclaiming their ancestral Jewish ancestry hidden from them, and from the nation, for centuries. With its beautiful narrative writing allied with a thoughtful analytic engagement<\/strong> linking hyper-local spaces in Lisbon with hyper-global spaces of international Jewish tourists, it\u2019s easy to see why the book won two awards and was a finalist\/honorable mention for two more:<\/p>\n Publisher\u2019s webpage here<\/a>.<\/p>\n *<\/strong><\/p>\n Timothy R. Landry, Vod\u00fan: Secrecy and the Search for Divine Power<\/em> (University of Pennsylvania Press)<\/strong><\/p>\n This intriguing work offers another fascinating look at international religious tourism. In this case, Western tourists travel from the U.S. and Europe to B\u00e9nin, homeland of the famed religion of Vod\u00fan (a.k.a. \u201cvoodoo\u201d), in search of a West African spirituality. Becoming apprenticed to a Vod\u00fan priest, Timothy Landry<\/a> offers, at once, an outsider\u2019s and insider\u2019s look at Vod\u00fan practice from the intertwined perspectives of practitioner, acolyte, seeker, and casual tourist<\/strong>. Along the way, he engages with issues ranging from the challenges inherent in representation of a stigmatized religious tradition to the ethical quandaries inevitably brought on by participant-observation. The book won the Clifford Geertz Prize in the Anthropology of Religion from the Society for the Anthropology of Religion. It appears in the Contemporary Ethnography<\/a> series that I edit for Penn Press.<\/p>\n Publisher\u2019s webpage here<\/a>.<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n Michelle Johnson, Remaking Islam in African Portugal: Lisbon\u2014Mecca\u2014Bissau<\/em> (Indiana University Press)<\/strong><\/p>\n Grounded in rich fieldwork in both Guinea-Bissau and Portugal conducted across 20 years, this book is an ethnographer\u2019s dream<\/strong>. Oozing with gorgeous ethnographic details, the book at the same time tackles all the issues one could hope to think about concerning West African Muslims\u2019 lives in Europe. Challenges of racism. Challenges of Islamophobia. Challenges by mainstream Muslims of heterodox practices. All these big-picture issues frame the stories Michelle Johnson<\/a> exquisitely tells. Those stories center stunning discussions of life-cycle and other rituals\u2014including a never-before-described practice of \u201cwriting on the hand\u201d to initiate young students into learning the Qu\u2019ran. Along the way, Johnson explores how immigrant African women and men rethink and adapt rural practices of female genital cutting, pilgrimages to Mecca, and funerals to urban neighborhoods\u00a0in a European capital. Paul Stoller predicts: \u201cGiven the depth of its analytical insights and the grace of its presentation, this is a work that will be read, savored, and debated for many years to come.\u201d This fabulous book appears in Indiana\u2019s Framing the Global<\/a> series.<\/p>\n Publisher\u2019s webpage here<\/a>.<\/p>\n *<\/strong><\/p>\n Cati Coe, Changes in Care: Aging, Migration, and Social Class in West Africa<\/em> (Rutgers University Press)<\/strong><\/p>\n Hot off the press, this\u00a0new ethnography, like Johnson\u2019s, sings with all that contemporary anthropology can offer<\/strong>. Over the course of 20+ years, Cati Coe<\/a> has lived and conducted research for long periods both in Ghana, and in the U.S. with Ghanaian migrants. The result is just the sort of rich ethnography that centers global flows, while also remaining deeply grounded in knowledge of intimate practices of the local. A short film accompanies the book, available online here<\/a>. The book appears in Rutgers\u2019 wonderful Global Perspectives on Aging<\/a> series, edited by Sarah Lamb.<\/p>\n Publisher\u2019s webpage here<\/a>.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/almagottlieb.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/11-Books-Reviewed-11-25-22-1024x865.jpg\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/almagottlieb.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/King-Redskins-cover.jpg\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/almagottlieb.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Starecheski-Ours-to-Lose-When-Squatters-Became-Homeowners-in-NYC-706x1024.jpg\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/almagottlieb.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/de-Jorio-Cultural-Heritage-in-Mali.jpg\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/almagottlieb.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Desmond-Displaying-Death-Animating-Life-Book-Cover-Front-682x1024.jpg\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/almagottlieb.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Cole-Groes-Affective-Circuits-682x1024.jpg\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/almagottlieb.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Bank-Pioneers-of-the-Field-Front-Cover.png\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/almagottlieb.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Bacigalupo-Thunder-Shaman-Front-Cover.png\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/almagottlieb.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Leite-Book-Cover-Front-681x1024.jpg\"){kind=spacer}
<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/almagottlieb.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Screen-Shot-2022-01-26-at-11.47.44-AM-679x1024.png\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/almagottlieb.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Johnson-Remaking-Islam-in-African-Portugal-Front-Cover.jpg\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/almagottlieb.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Coe-Changes-in-Care.png\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n