Some of the most recent articles from open access anthropology journals (beta)
The winds are changing at Suomen antropologi: Journal of Finnish Anthropological Society! My service as editor-in-chief is coming to an end at the end of this year and I am proud to announce the appointment of the incoming editors-in-chief,…
This paper examines how a group of women’s rights activists in Iran who identify as Muslim represented themselves prior to the emergence of the 2022 Mahsa Movement, and why they were reluctant to adopt the labels ‘feminist’ or ‘Islamic femi…
Anthropologists compare – it is at the heart of what we do as we try and make sense of, describe and explain human social being in all its diversity. But the use of comparison extends far beyond anthropology. Indeed, it seems ubiquitous acr…
This article explores how different forms of adaptation governance in Costa Rica shape subjectivities and adaptation capacities in smallholder farms. The country presently has a neoliberal-welfare state structure that stems from the progressive transit…
The looming ecological crisis demands an urgent rethinking of possibilities within our surroundings. This article examines the practice of bamboo-shoot fermentation in India’s North-Eastern Region (NER) and explores its connections to sustainability, f…
Cette contribution offre un regard heuristique et réflexif sur la préparation conjointe, en candidat libre et de manière autofinancée, de deux diplômes aux symboliques aussi fortes qu’apparemment opposées : un certificat d’aptitude professionnel…
Certaines maladies transmises via le lait de vache, comme la tuberculose et la diphtérie, suscitent l’inquiétude des médecins. Dans cet article nos questionnements sont à la croisée de la médecine humaine, de la médecine vétérinaire, de la micro…
In the early 1900s, the Swedish noblewoman Tyra Kleen (1874–1951) was a highly productive artist, author, suffragette and occult seeker. Although Kleen’s esoteric and feminist interests have to a limited extent been considered in previous r…
The essay considers the seeker as weaver and positions relationality as central to the experiences of many at the intersections of esotericism and modern art. It invokes the metaphor of weaving to envision a non-static, dislocated and limin…
In this article I examine how ecological and esoteric knowledge intersects in the works of the contemporary Icelandic artist Gabríela Friðriksdóttir. Drawing from diverse traditions and practices, such as alchemy, Neopaganism, tarot, numero…
This article explores esoteric potentiality—the perceived possibility of accessing the otherworldly—through a hermeneutic framework that integrates artist intent, the photographic image and audience reception. The Finnish artist Hanne Kiive…
This article explores the intersections of clairvoyance, mediumship and gender in early-twentieth-century art through the case of the Finnish artist and occultist Meri Genetz (1885–1943). While esotericism has played a pivotal role in moder…
This article proposes that approaching the work and practice of the British-born Mexican artist Leonora Carrington (1917–2011) and other women working at the intersection of art and esotericism necessitates revisiting some fundamental assum…
The special issue “The Witching of Art History” examines how women and artists beyond gender binaries have navigated artistic and occult subjectivities, identities and agency within art and occulture since the 19th century. The articles ill…
Seeking to establish “psychical history” as a category of Victorian occult science, this paper explores the consequences that emerge when belief in spirit phenomena converges on the historical imagination. To do so, a study of the Bygone Da…
This article explores a group of contemporary magical artists who are inspired by feminist new materialist thought. In the work of these contemporary artists, magic is defined less by the transmission of traditions and initiatory wisdom or …
This essay revisits art as an alternative epistemology that probes the parameters of the real and the complicated entanglements between humans and non-humans from an eco-feminist perspective. It builds upon the work of Leonora Carrington an…
This article examines the trans-disciplinary œuvre and hosting activities of the Swiss-based artist and archivist, Olga Fröbe-Kapteyn (1881–1962), founder of the Eranos Conferences and creator of the Eranos Archive. Drawn from my doctoral p…
I am deeply grateful to the readers of Oral Tradition—and even more to the authors of thearticles in these pages—for their patience in awaiting the appearance of this long-overduevolume. Rather than an excuse, I offer an assurance that the journal is taking steps to increase ourefficiency and improve our ability to review and publish work […]
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Oral Tradition, 37/1 (2023):23–47 The tandaning is one of the song genres of the Wide Bay Mengen living in East Pomio, Papua New Guinea (PNG). Tandaning is derived from the North Mengen verb tandan, “to cry,” also referred to as singsing krai in Tok Pisin, the lingua franca of PNG. The tandaning songs are composed […]
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Oral Tradition, 37 (2025):49–74 Paṇḍwāṇī is a term used in some parts of India to refer to the oral rendition of Mahābhārata stories. There are particularly well-known traditions of Paṇḍwāṇī performance in the states of Chhattisgarh and Uttarakhand, and scholarship and documentation are well developed for these regions.1 The term Paṇḍwāṇī is related to the […]
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Oral Tradition, 37 (2025):71–92 Introduction A hat, a mustache, an archaic costume. In the central square of Zanjān city—a hub where the city’s main streets converge—a group of ashiqs sings, each holding a stringed instrument close to their heart.2 Their aim is to stop passers-by, pull them in, and hold them just a little longer […]
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Oral Tradition, 37 (2025):97–137 1. Introduction What happens at the interface of Orality and Literacy? The societies of Ancient Mesopotamia (modern Iraq and environs) provide abundant evidence for exploring this question. The present paper argues that the system of spelling used for Babylonian and Assyrian (“Akkadian”), in the second and first millennia BCE, reflects the […]
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Oral Tradition, 37 (2025):19–21 Some years after completing the preceding article, the author came across what is so far the closest parallel to “What Do You Want Money For?” outside northwestern Africa: a Galician Yiddish nursery rhyme (Pipe 1971:200–201), which goes as follows (author’s rough translation, ignoring diminutives): Ele, bele, Yoske,You have a black bride.She […]
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Oral Tradition, 37 (2025):139-74 This song would be good if it were not so unnecessarily long. Although about 200 verse lines have been excised, this is the longest of all songs known to date. I could forgive him all the repetition and all the stretching out with nice language and diction, but I cannot forgive […]
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