Social Anthropology

, by Johnson, Christopher H. and David Warren Sabean

Exploring the Mongolian pawnshop institution through the analytical lens of anthropological exchange theory, this article argues that commodification has boosted the flow of dangerous agency and ‘spirit’ by easing the flow and exchangeability of belongings. While the distinction between gifts and commodities appears in Mongolian ethnography, it is neither stable nor definite, and it is argued that commodification at the pawnshop might actually serve to spiritually charge people and objects and thereby enhance their social agency and gift‐like aspects.

The anthropology of neoliberalism has become polarised between a hegemonic economic model anchored by variants of and an insurgent approach fuelled by derivations of the Foucaultian notion of . Both conceptions obscure what is ‘neo’ about neoliberalism: the reengineering and redeployment of the state as the core agency that sets the rules and fabricates the subjectivities, social relations and collective representations suited to realising markets. Drawing on two decades of field‐based inquiries into the structure, experience and political treatment of urban marginality in advanced society, I propose a between these two approaches that construes neoliberalism as an that harnesses the first to impose the stamp of the second onto the third. Bourdieu's concept of bureaucratic field offers a powerful tool for dissecting the revamping of the state as stratification and classification machine driving the neoliberal revolution from above and serves to put forth three theses: (1) neoliberalism is not an economic regime but a political project of state‐crafting that puts disciplinary ‘workfare’, neutralising ‘prisonfare’ and the trope of individual responsibility at the service of commodification; (2) neoliberalism entails a rightward tilting of the space of bureaucratic agencies that define and distribute public goods and spawns a Centaur‐state that practises liberalism at the top of the class structure and punitive paternalism at the bottom; (3) the growth and glorification of the penal wing of the state is an integral component of the neoliberal Leviathan, such that the police, courts and prison need to be brought into the political anthropology of neoliberal rule.

If epidemiological studies can define priorities for action, anthropological analyses are needed to clarify the conditions for the possibility of health problems. This article illustrates some of the ways in which public health and anthropological research may complement one another. Every year, 250,000 of the world's 200 million pregnant women die in Sub‐Saharan Africa. The medical causes of death are known and what should be done to avoid these unnecessary deaths is also known: quality caesareans, use of magnesium sulphate, hygiene during childbirth, tests and transfusion. So, concretely, the question is why sundry reforms fail or struggle for effective application. Drawing from a complex system of observation set up in four different services for 4‐month periods, this article aims to specify the qualitative variables that are behind the deaths of parturients.

Drawing on in‐depth qualitative interviews with irregular migrants in the UK, this article shows how the condition of ‘illegality’ permeates migrants’ everyday lives, gradually invading their social worlds and social and community networks. The article will focus on three aspects in particular: firstly, the impact of being undocumented on the ways migrants choose who to interact with and how; secondly, the range of social activities undocumented migrants engage in and the places where they socialise; and thirdly, the interaction with community organisations, churches and mainstream support agencies. Overall, by revealing differences as well as commonalities in the ways ‘illegality’ impact on migrants’ social worlds, the paper argues for a conceptualisation of ‘illegality’ that takes into account analytically how this intersects with specific legal and policy arrangements and broader socio‐economic context, as well as with migrants’ expectations and histories.

Editorial