A global rethinking of the attribution of agency to images
HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory
Some of the most recent articles from open access anthropology journals (beta)
HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory
This is an exhibition of fieldwork art adapted to the page. It is set out following the typical stages of an anthropological research project and presents works that were both made through fieldwork and exhibited as art. The strategy is one of “blendin…
This article examines the possible roles of exceptionally preserved clay reliefs and sculptures within a cave in the Mixe (Ayuujk) territory of Oaxaca, Mexico, a region where early researchers proposed that no art existed. Deploying conceptual tools of…
I examine my dual role as artist and ethnographer in the creation of artworks including mixed-media paintings and installations. Drawing from four works that combine art making and anthropological research, I present, from the perspective of anthropolo…
This article focuses on Tibetan thangka and thangka painters in Amdo Rebgong (Qinghai, China), who are caught between a state-fostered tourist market promoting Tibetan thangkas as folk art and an intermediate market where clients pursue the religious a…
By reexamining the empirical relationship between ethnography and photography, this article explores the phenomenology of photographic experiences in a French banlieue. Photography may be a powerful practice to critically depict social phenomena in the…
This article comprises a rethinking of Mauss’s The gift, reciprocity, and exchange theory in anthropology, using theories of chaos and complexity to make sense of the author’s ethnographic data from Papua New Guinea. The article begins with an explanat…
This article considers issues raised while working at the intersection of anthropology and visual art in Everglades National Park and during the months that followed. Based on a May 2019 residency as an AIRIE (Artist in Residence in Everglades) fellow,…
HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory
“‘By Name and No Other’: The COVID masks portrait project” is a series of images of the photographer’s family made in the early days of the COVID-19 quarantines in Seattle. These portraits document an uncertain moment, creating both a visual archive of…
This article explores a Mesoamerican topology based on the figure of the fold. It argues that the operation of folding represents a crucial concept for understanding indigenous cosmology and ontology. The fold is what allows the separation and articula…
Body painting uses a three-dimensional living canvas. While a widespread activity that can be characterized as a creative cultural scene, it has not yet merited anthropological attention. Even though body painting is closely related to the body, it is …
This article examines the social impacts of urban change among a generation of people for whom it is the norm: youth in Beijing, where decades of redevelopment have led to large-scale demolition of older neighborhoods and a perpetually changing citysca…
In the Maoist period, the Chinese socialist state encouraged the genre of “speaking bitterness” in order to give expression to past sufferings and cultivate a class consciousness. In the post-Mao era, scholars have noted how marginalized figures expres…
This article examines the changing sociological meaning of indifference in urban China after the tragic death of a two-year-old girl in a road accident in 2011. My analysis suggests that, in China where the political state had tried to claim credit for…
Critical scholars suggest that self-help psychology discourages political activism and encourages entrepreneurship by promoting a “positive” attitude. This article complicates this finding, arguing that for Chinese youth, self-help groups reproduce cla…
This article spotlights the role of affect in paths of “self-development,” focusing on young adults in China who engage in various training programs. Informed by market-driven expertise, individuals configure their feelings as central for their ability…
In recent years, the Chinese state has made family members care for and manage persons diagnosed with serious mental illnesses. Many of these caregivers are also former socialist workers to whom the state has broken its promise of paternalism. This art…
In the Chinese bureaucracy, where political imperatives for maintaining harmony require people to restrain negative affects, officials often express anger and aggression through silence, apathy, and other flat affects. Other times, overly positive spee…
Under the current Xi administration, China has marked December 13 as the national public Memorial Day for the Nanjing Massacre’s victims. The reaffirmation of this historical trauma under Xi continues the official narrative of the rejuvenation of a hum…
This article rethinks the politics of fear through the researcher’s ethnography in Hong Kong. Fear is often explored as a tool of manipulation that disempowers people. In contrast, the bodies, subjectivities, and actions of the fearful people are rarel…
HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory
The rise of psychological counseling, 心理咨询, as part of China’s unfolding psy-boom has brought with it a new discourse of distress. In particular, this article will look at the concept of 心理困扰/困惑, which I translate as “psychological troubles.” By identi…
If there is such a thing as a dominant public sphere in post-reform China, its emotional tonality has often been described as overwhelmingly positive, as evidenced by the recent focus on “happiness” campaigns or state-promoted “positive energy.” This s…
Au travers de l’analyse des discours de 21 adolescents belges âgés de 10 à 16 ans sur leur expérience vécue d’un mode de vie multilocal, cet article éclaire la manière dont la matérialité qui entoure ces jeunes leur permet d’ordonnancer leur mon…