Category: English

The Karimojong prophet Apaokere was called by Divinity in a dream to sacrifice. In this vision, Divinity instructed him to kill a prized dark ox for the women of his household to avoid the onset of “nothingness.” This two-part essay (the second part to…

This creative article seeks to trouble dominant modes of how anthropologists position themselves as moral subjects and grapple with their complicity with/in empire today: what we call “bearing witness” and “denunciation/confession.” In contrast to thes…

Debate about the status of animals has long impassioned theologians and philosophers. Are other animals “subjects” sharing the same rights as humans? Or are animals, as Descartes thought, mere machines? In many primitive societies but also in rural Eur…

I met Brigida in 2015. At the time, she presented herself as a young gay man, somewhat androgynous, and identified herself as culturally mixed-race (Mestizo). Today, in 2023, her identity card is that of an Indigenous woman, a Chola. This took place in…

How were lockdowns implemented, experienced, and perceived under China’s zero-COVID regime? How do we make sense of its sudden collapse after three years of its hegemonic presence dominating Chinese lives? What does it tell us about the zero-COVID regi…

For more than two years, China was one of the most difficult countries to enter. Within China’s borders, people’s everyday mobility in many cities was severely restricted due to its zero-COVID strategy and periodic lockdowns; outside the borders, Chine…

HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory

This article outlines China’s pandemic governance as an ever-changing assemblage of old and new techniques, material forms, and organizational structures over the course of three years. It zooms in on the ways in which the party-state drew on and (re)c…

HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory

For the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic in China, most urban Chinese displayed a high level of “willing compliance” with strict pandemic control measures. This willing compliance, however, collapsed in late 2022, as the state’s promises of per…

During the Shanghai lockdown in the spring of 2022, over twenty-five million residents had difficulty securing staple food and fresh groceries for days and even weeks. This article draws on both in-depth interviews and social media content to explore h…

During Shanghai’s two-month lockdown in 2022, residential community members coped with stress collectively. For many, this experience of intensive community engagement was a learning process with regard to the deliberation of community affairs and coll…

This paper draws attention to the ways in which the policy of zero covid disciplines spatiotemporal proximity to control the spread of coronavirus. The infrastructure of surveillance deployed for contact-tracing models degrees of spatiotemporal closene…

This article offers a case study of six-day lockdown experiences in a post-danwei (work unit) neighborhood in Mianyang, a third-tier city in southwest China. It argues that implementing lockdown, no matter how brief it was, allows local governments of …

COVID-19 lockdowns instituted a new kind of normal for many in China in the past three years. From Wuhan to Shanghai, urban lockdowns (封城 fengcheng) have become synonymous with the state’s draconian COVID control measures enforced upon the whole of soc…

Businesses that demonstrate organizational flexibility, characterized by dynamic problem-solving skills, in-house production processes, and a robust human capital, appear to be successful and resilient in times of crisis. Drawing on my fieldwork in med…

In today’s world, entrepreneurialism is frequently promoted for its potential to address major global social problems. Entrepreneurs are often celebrated for their ability to achieve what governments and development programs commonly fail to do: delive…

In this essay, I examine cooperative entrepreneurship’s role in driving digital organizational change in a Southern California credit union that caters to a mobile university population. Drawing on Joseph Schumpeter’s interpretative approach to entrepr…

Muslim women are increasingly venturing into niche culture-based business markets and establishing faith-oriented enterprises, selling modest wear, halal beauty products, and alcohol-free perfumes, along with engaging in non-traditional entrepreneurial…

This essay analyzes an emerging transnational Mexican migrant elite – a new social and economic group that has emerged not from established elites or privileged backgrounds, but from poor campesino families. Most of these (male) entrepreneur migrants e…

This study is an anthropological inquiry into the perceptions and attitudes of Black female tech entrepreneurs towards capitalism in the context of an incubator program in Detroit, USA. Drawing upon ethnographic data from the STEM Entrepreneurial Excel…

Journal of Business Anthropology

Journal of Business Anthropology

This was not a typical summit. It was an extraordinary event that offered a unique and immersive experience. Diverging from traditional conferences, the organizers crafted alternative participation formats, engaging activities, and inspiring venues. Th…

Journal of Business Anthropology