HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory. Special Issue: Values as Theory – Part 1 of 2. Vol. 3, 1 (2013)
Although this issue came out a while ago already, we want to showcase it now as we are just in the process of launching Allegra. And also, even though we will work hard to capture the most recent excitement in the field that should never be mistaken for any judgements of relevance. Hence also our commitment to profile classic texts in the field – and there is good cause to suspect that this issue will become one.
Thus: please ‘meet’ the first special issue of Hau: Journal of Ethnographic Theory focussing on values. The issue features a fabulous line of contributors including Anna Tsing, Robert Foster, Horacio Ortiz, Steffen Dalsgaard, Chris Gregory, Joel Robbins, Rane Willerslev, and André Iteanu, and its guest editors are Ton Otto and Rane Willerslev.
As the editor of HAU Giovanni Da Col characterizes the special issue in his introduction:
“The theme of value is one which has a distinguished anthropological pedigree and finds its most eminent heralds in Louis Dumont, Nancy Munn, Terry Turner, and David Graeber, among others. Questions of value have been stirring much interest in the last decade, yet the discipline lacks a thorough collection exploring the multifariousness and theoretical potential that the concept could mobilize”
The editors have also included more space for book reviews, noting
“we have been profoundly dissatisfied with the current state of book reviews in the discipline. Seven-hundred words, or even a short essay, do little justice to a complex work; neither does the standard format allow authors to respond with gratitude to the reviewers’ illuminations or rebut unsympathetic com- ments. Enter the HAU Book Symposium, a forum for monographs that tackle key debates in the discipline or that, in our opinion, may open up new fields of inquiry or highlight aspects of human sociality that are receptive to the craft of ethno- graphic theory. We bring in numbers of talented scholars to reflect on these mono- graphs and then invite the authors to respond.”
We are impressed with the outcome, and the journal also as a whole.
