Contemporary Ethnography
Founded in 1989, this groundbreaking series’ purpose is to encourage ethnographic writing that is flexible enough to give a voice to the people whose lives it records, to recreate those lives rather than merely describe them, and to encompass in this recreation the complexity, ambiguity, and emotion that are central to human experience. This flexibility can be achieved through the use of narration, first person and multiple points of view, dialogue, descriptive imagery, and other literary techniques.
Series Editors:
Alma Gottlieb
Professor Emerita of Anthropology and African Studies, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Timothy R. Landry
Associate Professor of Anthropology and Religious Studies, Trinity College
Staff Editorial Contact:
Elisabeth Maselli, Senior Editor
emaselli@upenn.edu
Founding Editors:
Paul Stoller
Professor of Anthropology, West Chester University
Permanent Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study at Friedrich Alexander University (FAU) Erlangen-Nuremberg
Dan Rose
Professor Emeritus of Landscape Architecture, University of Pennsylvania
Editor Emerita:
Kirin Narayan
Professor of Anthropology, Australian National University
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Living Tangier
Migration, Race, and Illegality in a Moroccan City
Price: $29.95
ISBN: 9781512827927
Pub Date: May 2025
Format: Paperback
280 Pages
How Moroccan society, especially in the city of Tangier, has been affected by the flows of migrants from both West Africa and EuropeSince the early 1990s, new migratory patterns have been emerging in...
Selective Solidarity
Children and Middle-Class Moralities in Transnational Senegal
Price: $34.95
ISBN: 9781512827569
Pub Date: June 2025
Format: Paperback
196 Pages
An ethnography of Senegalese households in Paris and Dakar that analyzes ways families negotiate transnational kinshipSelective Solidarity examines how global inequalities change the ways transnational...
Waiting at the Mountain Pass
Coming to Terms with Solitude, Decline, and Death in Tibetan Exile
Price: $44.95
ISBN: 9781512827354
Pub Date: March 2025
Format: Paperback
312 Pages
An intimate meditation on aging and dying in exile among elderly Tibetans in Dharamsala, IndiaIn a Tibetan saying, the journey of life is likened to a climb up to a mountain pass. Upon reaching it,...
Compromised Bodies
Cultural Imperialism, Agency, and the Ban on “Female Genital Mutilation” in Senegal
Price: $39.95
ISBN: 9781512827231
Pub Date: March 2025
Format: Paperback
272 Pages
This ethnography unravels the continuing political tensions surrounding Senegal’s 1999 national ban on “female genital mutilation”The Senegalese parliament authorized a national ban on “Female...
Why Not Build the Mosque?
Islam, Political Cost, and the Practice of Democracy in Greece
Price: $44.95
ISBN: 9781512827163
Pub Date: February 2025
Format: Paperback
248 Pages
An ethnography of a long-unbuilt mosque in Greece that explores government operations and contemporary democracyWhy Not Build the Mosque? tells the story of the Greek state’s centuries-long attempt...
Underground Politics
Gold Mining and State-Making in Colombia
Price: $32.50
ISBN: 9781512824575
Pub Date: November 2024
Format: Paperback
296 Pages
How Colombian mining communities navigate state power in a context of criminalization and political neglectIn the Chocó rainforests of Colombia, local and settler miners turn to gold as a means to...
Three Ways to Fail
Journeys Through Mapuche Chile
Price: $29.95
ISBN: 9781512826562
Pub Date: September 2024
Format: Paperback
184 Pages
An ethnographic exploration of anthropological failure through the Mapuche archetypes of witch, clown, and usurperHow do we learn what failure looks like? During the years anthropologist Magnus Course...
Until We're Seen
Public College Students Expose the Hidden Inequalities of the COVID-19 Pandemic
Price: $29.95
ISBN: 9781512826371
Pub Date: August 2024
Format: Paperback
320 Pages
Firsthand accounts of COVID-19’s devastating effects on working-class communities of colorThe first months of the COVID-19 pandemic were filled with talk of heroes, the frontline workers who kept...
Atmospheric Violence
Disaster and Repair in Kashmir
Price: $32.50
ISBN: 9781512823608
Pub Date: June 2024
Format: Paperback
296 Pages
Atmospheric Violence grapples with the afterlife of environmental disasters and armed conflict and examines how people attempt to flourish despite and alongside continuing violence. Departing from conventional...
Precarious Lives
Waiting and Hope in Iran
Price: $24.95
ISBN: 9781512825565
Pub Date: November 2023
Format: Paperback
288 Pages
In Precarious Lives, Shahram Khosravi attempts to reconcile the paradoxes of Iranians' everyday life in the first decade of the twenty-first century. On the one hand, multiple circumstances of precarity...

Living Tangier
Migration, Race, and Illegality in a Moroccan City
Price: $29.95
ISBN: 9781512827927
Pub Date: May 2025
Format: Paperback
280 Pages
Selective Solidarity
Children and Middle-Class Moralities in Transnational Senegal
Price: $34.95
ISBN: 9781512827569
Pub Date: June 2025
Format: Paperback
196 Pages
Waiting at the Mountain Pass
Coming to Terms with Solitude, Decline, and Death in Tibetan Exile
Price: $44.95
ISBN: 9781512827354
Pub Date: March 2025
Format: Paperback
312 Pages
Compromised Bodies
Cultural Imperialism, Agency, and the Ban on “Female Genital Mutilation” in Senegal
Price: $39.95
ISBN: 9781512827231
Pub Date: March 2025
Format: Paperback
272 Pages
Why Not Build the Mosque?
Islam, Political Cost, and the Practice of Democracy in Greece
Price: $44.95
ISBN: 9781512827163
Pub Date: February 2025
Format: Paperback
248 Pages
Underground Politics
Gold Mining and State-Making in Colombia
Price: $32.50
ISBN: 9781512824575
Pub Date: November 2024
Format: Paperback
296 Pages
Three Ways to Fail
Journeys Through Mapuche Chile
Price: $29.95
ISBN: 9781512826562
Pub Date: September 2024
Format: Paperback
184 Pages
Until We're Seen
Public College Students Expose the Hidden Inequalities of the COVID-19 Pandemic
Price: $29.95
ISBN: 9781512826371
Pub Date: August 2024
Format: Paperback
320 Pages
Atmospheric Violence
Disaster and Repair in Kashmir
Price: $32.50
ISBN: 9781512823608
Pub Date: June 2024
Format: Paperback
296 Pages
Precarious Lives
Waiting and Hope in Iran
Price: $24.95
ISBN: 9781512825565
Pub Date: November 2023
Format: Paperback
288 Pages