Hi there, and welcome to our second round up of interviews from our good friends at New Books in Anthropology. Each of the interviews below is an in-depth discussion with an author about her or his latest monograph. We hope you enjoy the collection.
Impossible Citizens: Dubai’s Indian Diaspora by Neha Vora
(Duke University Press, 2013)
Neha Vora’s Impossible Citizens is an account of middle class Indians who live and work, supposedly temporarily, in Dubai. Through an analysis of these perpetual outsiders, that are crucial to the Emirati economy, Vora sheds new light on our understanding of citizenship, belonging and Dubai itself. Interview by Ian Cook
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Japan, Alcoholism, and Masculinity: Suffering Sobriety in Tokyo by Paul A. Christensen
(Lexington Books, 2014 )
In this book Paul A. Christensen explores drinking, drunkenness, and male sociability in modern urban Japan through an ethnography of sobriety support groups. Complemented with historical analysis, the book looks at how men try to rebuild their selfhoods in the face of dismantled senses of masculinity. Interview by Carla Nappi
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Violence and Vengeance: Religious Conflict and Its Aftermath in Eastern Indonesia by Christopher R. Duncan
(Cornell University Press, 2013 )
In this ethnography Christopher R. Duncan examines the role that religion played in violence in Indonesia during 1999 and 2000 . Drawing on more than ten years of research in North Maluku, the book explores how participants (re)produce master narratives of religious warfare. Interview by Nick Cheesman
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Speculative Markets: Drug Circuits and Derivative Life in Nigeria by Kristin Peterson
(Duke University Press, 2014)
Delving into the Nigerian pharmaceutical market, Kristin Peterson’s new ethnography entwines approaches from medical anthropology with an analysis of the global economy, to explore how the pharmaceutical industry has remade itself through the speculative marketplace. This has important implications for individual Nigerians who find a mismatch between drugs and diseases, as well as for the formation of new professional relationships and markets. Interview by Carla Nappi
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Entangled Urbanism: Slum, Gated Community and Shopping Mall in Delhi and Gurgaon by Sanjay Srivastava
(Oxford University Press, 2015)
The latest book by Sanjay Srivastava explores the ways spaces and processes are interconnected in the city. From temples that resemble shopping malls, through the gates of luxury apartments and into the electricity supply networks of slums, the book pulls together the threads that entangle city dwellers with one another. Interview by Ian Cook
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Eating Drugs: Psychopharmaceutical Pluralism in India by Stefan Ecks
(NYU Press, 2013 )
Stefan Ecks’ latest work of medical anthropology explores health-related practices in Kolkata (erstwhile Calcutta). It analyses various and overlapping healing and medical contexts that together make the medical marketplace in this north Indian metropolis, exploring patients’ suspicions of ‘magic-bullet’ psychopharmaceuticals. Interview by Carla Nappi
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Rhinestones, Religion, and the Republic: Fashioning Jewishness in France by Kimberly Arkin
(Stanford University Press, 2013)
Kimberly Arkin analyses the “racialisation” of Jewishness in North African Jewish adolescents. Through her interviews with second- and third-generation students who attend three different Jewish day schools the book explores multiculturalism in postcolonial France. Interview by Jason Schulman
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1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed by Eric H. Cline
(Princeton University Press, 2014)
Eric H. Cline’s book recreates the late Bronze Age life, before describing its complete destruction. Exploring the explanations why so many cities, empires and civilisations collapsed in 1177 – plagues, earthquakes, the Sea People – the book analyses the whys and the hows of the First Dark Age. Interview by Robert Broadway
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Featured image by Justin Lynham (flickr, CC BY-NC 2.0)
Great work. Filling that “dead space” in not easy task.