As 2025 came to a close, we look back on another year of lively discussions and close readings that make the Anthropology Book Forum what it is. This year, we published reviews on everything from the politics of climate migration to new ethnographies of digital life, continuing our ongoing conversation about what anthropology can do […]
Paul Hansen, Hokkaido Dairy Farm: Cosmopolitics of Otherness and Security on the Frontiers of Japan. State University of New York Press. 308 p. IBSN: 9781438496467. Keywords: Hokkaido, Japan, rural, frontier, agriculture, dairy, non-human, security, otherness, individuality. Paul Hansen’s Hokkaido Dairy Farm gives us a rich ethnography of a Japanese dairy farm in Tokachi, […]
In A Tale of Two Surrogates (2025), sociologist Elly Teman and anthropologist Zsuzsa Berend bring years of ethnographic research to life through the vivid and accessible medium of comics. The graphic novel delves into the complex emotional, medical, legal, and ethical terrain of assisted reproduction, following women whose lives intertwine through their experiences as gestational […]
Abstract: As the first comprehensive inquiry of its kind, Critical Perspectives on Ancient DNA critically interrogates the practices, narratives, and sociocultural effects of archaeogenetics. Bringing together scholars from anthropology, archaeology, genetics, cultural history, media studies, and science and technology studies, the collection examines the epistemological and ontological challenges of ancient DNA (aDNA) research. Key themes […]
KEYWORDS: Sideways migration, the French, London, Brexit, Emplacements and Dislocations Migration studies is a major well-established area of research with a focus on dangerous escape and precarious conditions in the new country. Yet there are large movements of middle-class lifestyle migrants who relocate to a geographically nearby country similar socially, politically and economically to their […]
Han, Lisa Yin. 2024. DEEPWATER ALCHEMY. Extractive Mediation and the Taming of the Seafloor. Minneapolis, London: University of Minnesota Press, 256 pp. ISBN: 9781517915940 Despite what its cover might suggest, this is not a book entirely focused on deep-sea mining. However, the timing of the publication of Deepwater Alchemy: Extractive Mediation and the […]
At a time when masked officers from the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency carrying out immigration raids are in the news and memories of the Covid-19 pandemic remain fresh, The Mask is a timely contribution. Covering a broad sweep of history, Strasser and Schlich offer a thoughtful reflection on what masks say about both […]
KEYWORDS: Medicine, Russia, Buddhism, History of Science, Production of Knowledge In today’s globalized world, it is common for individual patients and broader communities to seek health advice and intervention across multiple medical traditions, often combining biomedical approaches with others dubbed “traditional,” “complementary,” or “alternative.” In Tatiana Chudakova’s Mixing Medicines: Ecologies of Care in Buddhist […]
Flores, Andrea. The succeeders: How immigrant youth are transforming what it means to belong in America. Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2021. The Succeeders: How Immigrant Youth Are Transforming What It Means to Belong in America is an intriguing and insightful ethnographic study of a program called “The Succeeders,” which supports Latino high […]
JASSAL, AFTAB SINGH. 2024. Gods in the World: Placemaking and Healing in the Himalayas. Religion, Culture, and Public Life. New York: Columbia University Press. 244 pp., ISBN 978-0-231-21497-1 (paper). KEYWORDS: body, placemaking, relationality, non-human, India Aftab S. Jassal’s Gods in the World is a finely crafted ethnography of Uttarakhand at the juncture where […]
Ryo Morimoto, 2023, Nuclear Ghost Atomic Livelihoods in Fukushima’s Gray Zone, 1st Edition, California Series in Public Anthropology, University of California Press, 356 pp., ISBN: 9780520394117. Ryo Morimoto’s Nuclear Ghost is a poignant and richly immersive ethnography that probes the interwoven lives, ongoing uncertainties, and contested landscapes of post-disaster Fukushima, over a decade after […]
Keywords: prehistory, complex societies, historical processualism, subsistence, landscape.
Keywords: Indigenous Resistance, Dispossession, Extractivism, Historical Memory, Violence Giovanni Batz’s The Fourth Invasion: Decolonizing Histories, Extractivism, and Maya Resistance in Guatemala is a poignant and unflinching account of the long, ongoing legacy of colonial dispossession in Guatemala, specifically in the Cotzal region. Batz masterfully situates local struggles and Indigenous resistance against contemporary economic megaprojects within […]
VAIBHAV SARIA, Hijras, Lovers, Brothers: Surviving Sex and Poverty in Rural India, Fordham University Press, 2021, 249pp., ISBN 9780192873767 Keywords: Queer Ethnography, Sexuality and Desire, Asceticism and Eroticism, Temporalities of Desire, Hijra Identity “Why do men have sex with men?” …….The answers further link the anxieties of pleasure with the substratum economy of […]
Benazzo, Zaya and Maurizio Benazzo (Directors). The Wisdom of Trauma (Film). Science and Nonduality, 2021. 1hr., 27 min. https://vimeo.com/762456491 Keywords: trauma-informed, addiction, compassionate inquiry, unconventional, generational trauma The documentary Wisdom of Trauma, directed and produced by Zaya Benazzo and Maurizio Benazzo, is immersed in the work and philosophy of Dr. Gabor Mate: an author, […]
Oakland: University of California Press, 276 pp., ISBN 9780520395541
Anthony Russell Jerry, Blackness in Mexico: Afro-Mexican Recognition and the Production of Citizenship in the Costa Chica. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 2023. Since the Revolution, Mexican elites have privileged a racial ideology that promotes mestizaje–the mixture of indigenous and European peoples. Yet in more recent years, both international and domestic groups have called for […]
Bell, Kirsten. 2022. Silent But Deadly: The Underlying Cultural Patterns of Everyday Behaviour. Caw Press: London. Pages, pp208. ISBN: 978-1-3999-3632-3 Kirsten Bell’s ‘Silent but Deadly’ offers a fresh perspective on the often-overlooked details of everyday life. It transforms the familiar into something fascinating and reveals the subtle patters that govern our behaviour. With a […]
COLIN HOAG, 2022, The Fluvial Imagination: On Lesotho’s Water-Export Economy, Oakland: University of California Press, 224 pp., ISBN 978-0-52038-634-1. In The Fluvial Imagination, Colin Hoag, a former U.S. Peace Corps volunteer in Lesotho, examines rangeland and water conservation efforts associated with the Lesotho Highland Water Project, a crucial infrastructure initiative designed to cater to […]
Mathews, Andrew S. 2022. Trees Are Shape Shifters: How Cultivation, Climate Change, and Disaster Create Landscapes. Yale Agrarian Studies Series. New Haven: Yale University Press, 320 pp., ISBN 978-0-300-26037-3 Keywords: Italy, landscape politics, climate change, historical ecology, biomass energy, disasters, care In the Monte Pisano, a mountain range in Tuscany, Italy, people have been living […]
Shaylih Muehlmann, 2024, Call the Mothers: Searching for Mexico’s Disappeared in the War on Drugs, Oakland, California: University of California Press, 264 pp., ISBN 9780520314573 “Call the Mothers: Searching for Mexico’s Disappeared in the War on Drugs” is a compelling multi-sited ethnography that begins with the author’s account of meeting Leticia in Mexico City, […]
