Unit of Social Anthropology

Publications

These are the latest publications of our staff members.

Publication

Publikation von Tobias Haller

Swiss commoners’ struggles for the right balance: Ontologies, identities and responses to market and state pressures. Critique of Anthropology, 45(1),

Haller, T. (2025). Swiss commoners’ struggles for the right balance: Ontologies, identities and responses to market and state pressures. Critique of Anthropology, 45(1), 48-59. Special Issue: Strategic Entanglements, Guest Editors: Jelena Tošić and Andreas Streinzer. The paper shows how Swiss commoners’ ontologies and identities are related to cultural landscape creation since the Middle Ages. However, their maintenance in the postindustrial world depends on the commoner’s specific bargaining power to deal with market and state pressures in order to face capitalist neoliberal uncommoning processes.

Edited by Johanna Mugler

Anthropology and Tax. Ethnographies of Fiscal Relations

Edited by Johanna Mugler, Universität Bern, Switzerland, Miranda Sheild Johansson, University College London, Robin Smith, Copenhagen Business School

Haller, T. and Weissman, S.

Disenchanted Modernities: Mega-Infrastructure Projects, Socio-Ecological Change and Local Responses.

Haller, T. and Weissman, S. (eds.) (2024). Disenchanted Modernities: Mega-Infrastructure Projects, Socio-Ecological Change and Local Responses. Hamburg, Berlin, Wien, Zürich: Lit-Verlag.

With contributions from Pascale Schild and Sabine Strasser

The Multi-Sided Ethnographer: Living the field beyond research

The Multi-Sided Ethnographer: Living the field beyond research, edited by Tim Burger, Usman Mahar, Pascale Schild and Anna-Maria Walter

Veronika Siegl

Intimate Strangers. Commercial Surrogacy in Russia and Ukraine and the Making of Truth

Zooming in on commercial surrogacy in Russia and Ukraine, Intimate Strangers addresses market expansion into the intimate spheres of life that play out on women's bodies as mothers and workers.Veronika Siegl follows the inner workings of a surrogacy market marked by secrecy, distrust, and anonymous business relationships. She explores intended mothers' anxious struggles for a child in light of stigmatized infertility and the aggressive biopolitics of motherhood; the uncertain but pragmatic pathways in and out of fertility clinics as surrogates navigate harsh economic realities and resist being objectified or morally judged; and the powerful role of agents and doctors who have found a profitable niche in nurturing and facilitating other people's existential hopes. Intimate Strangers discusses these issues against the backdrop of ultra-conservatism and moral governance in Russia, the rising international popularity of the Ukrainian surrogacy market, and the pervasiveness of neo-liberal ideologies and individualized notions of reproductive freedom.

Neue Aufsätze und Buchbeiträge

New publication from Darcy Alexandra

“A Border Multiple,”

New publication from Darcy Alexandra, “A Border Multiple,” in Harvard’s open-access, online journal for experiments in critical media practice, Sensate

Kane, Violetta

Schlank geschnitten, eng gedacht. Zur Ästhetisierung von Kontrolle und Rückkehr einer politisierten Norm.

Kane, Violetta: Schlank geschnitten, eng gedacht. Zur Ästhetisierung von Kontrolle und Rückkehr einer politisierten Norm. POP-Zeitschrift, 19.08.2025. Online verfügbar

Schild, Pascale. 2025.

Sharing vulnerabilities: Rethinking privilege and solidarities in anthropology from the perspective of ordinary ethics.

Schild, Pascale. 2025. Sharing vulnerabilities: Rethinking privilege and solidarities in anthropology from the perspective of ordinary ethics. Anthropology and Humanism 50(1): 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1111/anhu.70012

Michaela Schäuble

Decolonizing and/or Re-appropriating De Martino’s ‘Scattered’ Multimodal Archive?

“Decolonizing and/or Re-appropriating De Martino’s ‘Scattered’ Multimodal Archive?”, in CoSMo. Comparative Studies in Modernism. Special issue on “Attraverso i confini: Ernesto De Martino e le arti”, a cura di Roberto Dainotto, Francesco Lesce, Luisa Sampugnaro No. 26 (2025).

Neue Publikation von Sabrina Stallone

Kapitel im Buch „Türen, Toren, Pforten und Portale“

„Hinter verschlossenen Türen. Sexarbeit in der gentrifizierten Stadt“ ist ein Essay, das im Buch „Türen, Tore, Pforten und Portale“ (Scheidegger & Spiess) dieser Tage erscheint. Darin geht es um überraschende Zugänge zur Geschichte von Aussersihl, eines berüchtigten Teils der Stadt Zürich. Alltag und Arbeitsbedingungen, politische Kämpfe und religiöse Bekenntnisse, Immigration und Emigration, Ausschluss und Integration, Gentrifizierung und Sexarbeit – all das lässt sich an Ein- und Zugängen erfahren.

neue Publikation von J. Féaux de la Croix

Buchbeitrag in "Handbuch Umweltethnologie"

Das „Handbuch Umweltethnologie“ bildet den Stand der Forschung der Umweltethnologie ab und beleuchtet die komplexen Mensch-Umwelt-Beziehungen. Es untersucht, wie kulturelle und soziale Wechselwirkungen diese Verhältnisse gestalten und verändern und legt besonderes Augenmerk auf die unterschiedlichen Konstruktionen und Verständnisse von Naturen und Kulturen sowie auf die Dynamik zwischen Mensch, Kultur und Umwelt.