Perspectives in Anthropology

Internet-based magazine

How the informal economy took over the World – Part 2 by Keith Hart

The dialectics of form “General Forms have their vitality in Particulars, and every Particular is a Man” (William Blake). Most readers of this book live substantially inside what we may call the formal economy. This is a world of salaries or fees paid on time, regular mortgage payments, clean credit ratings, fear of the […]

Cultural Critique: Anthropological – by Keith Hart

Cultural critique, the use of anthropology to draw critical attention to institutions that readers take for granted, is as old as the origins of the modern discipline. It was a major purpose of Boas’s students, especially Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict. Its antecedents range from modernism to the critical theory of the Frankfurt School and […]

Agriculture in Human Evolution – by Keith Hart

In his Discourse on the Origins and Foundations of Inequality among Men (1754) Jean-Jacques Rousseau was concerned, not with individual variations in natural endowments, but with the artificial inequalities of wealth, honour and the capacity to command obedience that he derived from social convention. In order to construct a model of human equality, he imagined […]

Filtered Realities

In order to proceed, we must first acknowledge the more than three decades of work by a man who has been sounding the alarm concerning the dangers of media organizations manipulating information for the purpose of influencing opinions and behaviors. His name is Noam Chomsky and his two ground-breaking books, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy […]

The Horror of War – Part 3

Sometime in June 1971, an incident occurred that completely changed my attitude toward the US Army. In fact, I was never the same again. It all began with Brother Bobby’s hooch maid Mai and a white GI that liked her. It seems that when Bobby was working at the Mess Hall, this white GI would […]

An Anthropologist in the World Revolution – Pt. 2 by Keith Hart

As we approached the millennium, with the dotcom boom roaring away, I wanted to write a book that would sum up 30 years of teaching and point forward at the same time. My first attempt was a textbook, Anthropology and the modern economy. But I found it depressing: it contained nothing of what I had […]

The Real Race Problem – Part 2

On the eve of the one-hundred and eighth anniversary of W.E.B. Du Bois’ newspaper The Crisis, we are presenting, in its entirety, a lecture from the distinguished anthropologist, mentor and head of the Anthropology Department at Columbia University for many years – Dr. Franz Boas on the subject of the “race” problem. THE REAL RACE […]

The Real Race Problem – Part 1

On the eve of the one-hundred and eighth anniversary of W.E.B. Du Bois’ newspaper The Crisis, we are presenting, in its entirety, a lecture from the distinguished anthropologist, mentor and head of the Anthropology Department at Columbia University for many years – Dr. Franz Boas on the subject of the “race” problem. THE REAL […]

The Culture of Corruption

Many of us know that political corruption is not new to the world. It is an unsavory, human practice with a history that extends far back into ancient times, countries, and rulers. Unlike modern times, there were no checks and balances of power then and rulers were free to rule however they saw fit. During […]

Teaching Anthropology in 2018

Recently, a colleague contacted me with a very interesting and specific question. At the time, I was on the road and too busy to address his inquiry. I asked him to hold on until I had time to think about how to approach the question. After some thought, I decided to respond by penning this […]

There’s Something in the Water

A recent death in the family necessitated a return to the United States after living abroad for the past ten years. A family member in Miami has a large home, so I stayed there for six months while handling family business. From the very beginning, I noticed a slight discoloration in the tap water in […]

The Struggle for Power by Keith Hart

Book Review: The Rise and Fall of Nations: Ten Rules of Change in the Post-Crisis World by Ruchir Sharma, London: Allen Lane, 2016; pp 464, £25. Ruchir Sharma grew up between Mumbai, Delhi and Singapore. He entered the world of international investment in the early 1990s as a specialist in emerging markets. He has […]

Anthropology and the New Human Universal by Keith Hart

World society today resembles nothing so much as the eighteenth century ancient régime that Kant had every reason to believe had been abolished by revolution. Now a rich, aging white minority inured to luxuries unimaginable two centuries ago presides over masses whose passivity is measured by their lack of spending power (Hart 2002). The institutional […]

Gun Violence in American Schools

There is something terribly wrong going on in American schools today. A silent epidemic is spreading throughout the country like a cancer. What does it say about a society when children and adolescents can get their hands on military grade weapons, somehow get them into their schools and gun down dozens of fellow classmates […]

Brazil’s Dichotomous Treatment of Corruption – PT 2

After the end of the Brazilian military dictatorship, the Liberal Front Party (LFP), Democratic Social Party (PMDB) and Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB) dominated the government of Brazil. For more than 20 years, right wing and centrists autocrats controlled the government and struggled with enormous foreign debt, rampant hyperinflation, and the difficulties of transitioning to […]

Brazil’s Dichotomous Treatment of Corruption – PT 1

Brazil is a country saturated with corruption. From the small, family-owned mom and pop neighborhood grocery store to the hallowed halls of the Senate and Congress, the country suffers from a cancer that consumes the bone marrow of its political elements, economic structures, and social relationships. The one-time rising star of Latin America and its […]

The Open Anthropology Cooperative: Towards an Online Public Anthropology-by Keith Hart

We attempt here to explore the relationship between anthropology, social media and public engagement through a web-based network that we helped to found and manage. We argue that obscure social and technical dynamics are at work here, but academic anthropology today also poses signiﬁcant obstacles for this enterprise.

Preface to the Coming World Crisis-by Keith Hart

Trump’s election has accelerated talk on the left of the end of (neo-) liberalism and the rise of fascism in the West. The prospects for world war seem closer now. As when the 2008 crash is placed in history, comparison is usually with the 1930s. We need rather to develop a perspective on 1900-2100 as […]

Mess in the Middle East

Many people throughout the Western world do not understand what is happening in the Middle East. Much of the confusion stems from a misunderstanding of the complicated relations between countries, land, people, and political objectives. One particular myth is these conflicts go back as far as the Crusades and the wars between Muslims and Christians. […]

The Second American Revolution

Well, it only took about two-hundred and forty years but the greatest fear of the writers of the Constitution of the United States has taken place. A rich, capitalist class of billionaire Americans have finally taken over the government. It seems that political representatives from states all over the country have sold out their constituents […]

Brexit: Where once was an empire-by Keith Hart

Separation from Europe has opened up the real possibility that the United Kingdom will break up. Scotland is already bent on secession and the two Irelands may resolve the problem of belonging to different commercial regimes by reunification. The London media portray such an outcome as unthinkable. My aim here is to recall the violent […]

Why do Leaders Fail?

This is an opinion piece that some might say loosely fits within the realm of anthropology. And yet, if one could say that anthropology is the genealogy and archaeology of human activity, then under those circumstances it should be appropriate. I wish to discuss those things that any head of State, President, or sovereign leader […]

World’s Most Vital Resource

It is not necessary to explain the process by which algae through millions of years of geological time and chemical reactions become fossil fuels such as oil, natural gas and coal. It is important to explain, however, why these fossil fuels have become the most vital resources in the world today. Our modern-day lives depend […]

Indispensability of Medical Anthropology

Medical anthropology, although considered a subcategory in anthropology, has been making contributions to medicine and public health since the development of anthropology itself. The fact that anthropology, as a multi-disciplinary, intrinsic, discipline has contributed valuable information and techniques to several other disciplines justifies its essential importance. Although its early history is diverse, there exist three […]

Self-imposed Discrimination in Brazil

When I arrived in Brazil seven years ago as an American anthropologist seeking to discover if Brazil would be a good place to do research for a book, I had no idea about the degree of class discrimination that existed and the depths of its penetration into the cultural fabric of Brazilian society. Clearly, I […]