Author: Nancy Munn

HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory

HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory

HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory

This account dates from 1985, originally a companion piece to “Discovering ‘social control’” (1985), but not published in this form then. The ethnographic milieu is Hagen, in Papua New Guinea, under the colonial regime of the 1960s and 70s, and the Aus…

Through the notions of distance, double critique, and colonial difference, this essay suggests a decolonization through a novel usage of colonial ethnographies. Analyzing the case of Morocco to reflect on the question of language(s) used in writing eth…

This essay introduces the translations of two articles by Gao Bingzhong on the topic of “overseas ethnography” in China. In these essays, Gao attempts to create more space for Chinese anthropologists to do ethnographic research outside of China, rather…

HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory

HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory

By looking at the vestiges of the scientific archive destroyed by the fire that reduced Brazil’s National Museum to ruins in September 2018, this essay seeks to explore what Isabelle Stengers () described as “another look” at artifacts and the historie…

HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory

In this essay, I propose a process of humbling anthropology in order to counter the (re)production of White ignorance. I argue that anthropology’s epistemological foundation, in its contemporary liberal guise of an ego reflexivus, remains firmly rooted…

With Detroit as its principal site, this essay examines the possibility and the hope for developing a decolonial practice as part of the research in and of a “Black” city. What can we learn from Detroit and what needs to change about ethnography in ord…

HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory

HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory

Inspired by the idea of “transculturation,” formulated as a contrastive metaphor and concept by Fernando Ortiz in the 1940s, this article seeks to explore the making of clay balls called “Moengo pemba,” extracted from former bauxite excavation areas by…

Calls to “decolonize” the social sciences have reverberated in academia since at least the 1950s. Anthropology, in particular, has been marked as the “child of colonialism” and “handmaiden of imperialism” (Gough ). Over the course of eight decades now,…

This article offers a reading of Ortiz’s first book, Los negros brujos (). By following the theme of “duplicity” that structures the loose notes that compose the volume, an argument emerges in which reality and copy, credulity and hypocrisy, “true bruj…

Convinced that ethnography still provides a critical tool for studying and understanding our ever-changing and complex world, I present here a case for approaching ethnographic work through “listening.” I extend the notion of listening to include readi…

This afterword comments on the articles collected in this special issue dedicated to the counterpoint between the Mediterranean where Fernando Ortiz grew up, and the Caribbean where he lived most of his life. Under the influence of Lombroso, Ortiz bega…

For this Currents section, we have called upon anthropologists across the global South and North in the attempt to mainstream the long overdue issue of decolonizing ethnographies. On the one hand, movements for ethnic/racial equality across the world h…

HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory

The contemporary retranslation and circulation of Lucumí songs for the orishas (deities) among devotees and scholars in Cuba inadvertently reproduces both the sources and methods of Ortiz’s earliest linguistic ventures and reinforces his enduring influ…

The cult of María Lionza is an Afro-Latin American religion native to Venezuela which usually involves episodes of spirit possession. Its most notable figure is María Lionza, a plural goddess imagined and represented in different ways (as an Indian, Wh…

A materialistic way to account for the continuities and discontinuities of the extended work of Cuban researcher, writer, and politician Fernando Ortiz, is to follow the trajectory of his fetishes. From the fetishes of Italian and Spanish criminal anth…

This article analyzes the lexicographical studies undertaken by the distinguished Cuban anthropologist and ethnologist Fernando Ortiz Fernández concerning the Spanish spoken in Cuba. It begins with a brief exposition of the factors conducive to the ris…