This series explores policy through anthropological methodologies to better understand how policies work as instruments of political intervention and social change. What new kinds of actors, subjects, and social spaces do policies create, and how are they used to manage populations? Can policy analysis shed light on wider transformations of governance and power? How can ethnography capture critical dimensions of policymaking, and the cultural worlds of policymakers themselves? For more on the series, click below.
The Anthropology of Policy Noémi Lendvai-Bainton and Paul Stubbs, February 2024 The anthropology of policy as a field emerged in the 1990s in recognition of the need to understand and critically interrogate policies as important sites of classification, disciplining,...
Voices of Resistance: Stories from Latina Women in Florida In 2024, Florida made national headlines for legislation that focused on reducing reproductive rights, silencing public school discussions about LGBTQ+ people, and championing aggressive immigration...
We Have to Meet in Person to Be Moved by People’s Stories Jen Sandler, Renita Thedvall & Cassandra Bensahih, September 12th 2024 Meetings are where people come together in time and space. We meet to heal, to build, to resist, to govern, to share, to change. People...
Coordinating Care and Coercion: Styles of Sovereignty and the Politics of Humanitarian Aid in Lebanon Sam Dinger, NYU - 2023 Coordinating Care and Coercion: Styles of Sovereignty and the Politics of Humanitarian Aid in Lebanon is a timely—urgent, even—critique of...
Transforming School Food Politics around the World Edited by Jennifer E. Gaddis and Sarah A. Robert Foreword by Silvia Federici How to successfully challenge and transform public school-food programs to emphasize care, justice, and sustainability, with insights from...
Unruly Domestication: Poverty, Family, and Statecraft in Urban Peru Kristin Skrabut, May 2024 How the international war on poverty shapes identities, relationships, politics, and urban space in Peru. Unruly Domestication investigates how Peru’s ongoing,...
AAA Annual Conference in Tampa – ASAP Sessions 22 November 10.15-11.45 Marriott WSRoom 6 Oral Presentation Session To govern is often to simplify reality into manageable ideas and data that can be turned into policy. In this way, governing is formed around...
Anthropology of Public Policy — Syllabus Cris Shore This course has two main aims. The first is to interrogate the concept of ‘policy’ and examine how it works - as a socio-cultural category, a political technology and an instrument of governance. The second is to...
The Social Life of Policy — Syllabus Jennifer Hubbert The study of policy deals with issues at the heart of anthropology such as institutions and power; ideology and discourse, identity and culture; and interactions between the global and the local, public and...
Notes from the Section Leadership: ASAP sessions at the IUAES in Dubrovnik (May 2016) The Association for the Anthropology of Policy Paul Stubbs, David Haines, and Cris Shore April 4, 2017 The Association for the Anthropology of Policy (ASAP) contributed three...
Policy Matters - A Preview of ASAP Panels at the 2017 AAA Meeting The Association for the Anthropology of Policy Theodore Powers November 1, 2017 A Preview of ASAP Panels at the 2017 AAA Meeting The 2017 Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association in...
Notes from the Section Leadership (2018) The Association for the Anthropology of Policy David Haines and Cris Shore March 9, 2018 It has been just four years since the Association for the Anthropology of Policy (ASAP) was founded and we have sustained the energy...
Situating Policy in an Unsettled World at the 2018 Annual Meeting The Association for the Anthropology of Policy Theodore Powers November 5, 2018 The 2018 Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association will soon convene in San José, California....
Notes from the Section Leadership (2019) The Association for the Anthropology of Policy Carol MacClennan and Paul Stubbs March 6, 2019 ASAP in review and prospect The Association for the Anthropology of Policy (ASAP) was formed in 2014. At the last count, we have...
ASAP at the 2019 AAA/CASCA Annual Meeting Association for the Anthropology of Policy Theodore Powers November 1, 2019 The Association for the Anthropology of Policy (ASAP) is sponsoring four panels and two section events at the Annual Meeting in Vancouver this...
"We Are Not Going to Vote Again!" Violence and the Politics of Devolution in Northern Kenya Sean Furmage, 2017 Abstract: In this paper, I explore how the implementation of decentralization policies has shaped violence in Samburu County, northern Kenya. In 2010, a...
Automobility and Flexibility after Foster Care in Kentucky EB Saldaña. Princeton University, 2021 In this paper, I ask: What are the specific conditions for former foster youth that make car-based mobility particularly challenging? Based on ten months of fieldwork in...
Drugs, Thugs, and Diplomats: US Policymaking in Colombia Winifred Tate, 2015 In 2000, the U.S. passed a major aid package that was going to help Colombia do it all: cut drug trafficking, defeat leftist guerrillas, support peace, and build democracy. More than 80% of...
Navigating Austerity: Currents of Debt Along a South Asian River Laura Bear, 2015 Navigating Austerity addresses a key policy question of our era: what happens to society and the environment when austerity dominates political and economic life? To get to the heart of...
Fragile Elite: The Dilemmas of China's Top University Students Susanne Bregnæk, 2016 China's One Child Policy and its rigorous national focus on educational testing are well known. But what happens to those "lucky" few at the very top of the pyramid: elite university...
The Orderly Entrepreneur: Youth, Education, and Governance in Rwanda Catherine A. Honeyman, 2016 The first generation of children born after Rwanda's 1994 genocide is just now reaching maturity, setting aside their school uniforms to take up adult roles in Rwandan...
ONE BLUE CHILD: ASTHMA, RESPONSIBILITY, AND THE POLITICS OF GLOBAL HEALTH Susanna Trnka, 2017 One Blue Child examines the emergence of self-management as a global policy standard, focusing on how healthcare is reshaping our relationships with ourselves and our bodies,...
LAW MART: JUSTICE, ACCESS, AND FOR-PROFIT LAW SCHOOLS Riaz Tejani, 2017 American law schools are in deep crisis. Enrollment is down, student loan debt is up, and the profession's supply of high-paying jobs is shrinking. Meanwhile, thousands of graduates remain...
The Gray Zone: Sovereignty, Human Smuggling, and the undercover Police Investigation in Europe Gregory Feldman, 2019 Based on rare, in-depth fieldwork among an undercover police investigative team working in a southern EU maritime state, Gregory Feldman examines how...