Building upon ethnography in the hidden spaces of U.S. homes, Sasha Newell, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at North Carolina State, excavates carefully concealed affective intimacies with objects. Unlike curated collections, material accumulations happen of their own accord in darkened corners, gradually accruing mass and inserting affective hooks into the tissue of our sociality, until they burst forth into visible space in ways that threaten normative value structures. Those who fail to contain or conceal such accumulations are classified as hoarders, their deviance essentialized as mental disorder.

Sasha Newell has conducted fieldwork in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, amongst Congolese and Ivoirian immigrants in Paris, and the United State. His research interests revolve around the social life of objects and the role of materiality in the production of culture, but include urban social networks and exchange, consumption and postcolonial identity, witchcraft and magic, semiotics, and ideologies of modernity. His book, The Modernity Bluff: Crime, Consumption, and Citizenship in Côte d’Ivoire, describes how urban African youth consume European and U.S. brands in an effort to perform “modern” success. Such performances, involving dance, slang, and conspicuous consumption, are recognized as bluffing, but imitation is appreciated as an art form rather than scorned as artifice. Newell is currently engaged in a new research project on hoarding, storage space, memory, and the role of stored objects in the production of kinship in U.S. culture.

On the Animacy of Accumulation and the Affect of Stored Things with Sasha Newell

Brandeis University anthropology Lecturer Daniel Souleles discusses the significance of joking amongst private equity managers. 

Abstract: Americans are unsure about great wealth. Accumulated money is alternately the mark of a life well-lived, and despised as the root of social dysfunction. Financiers are not immune to this ambiguity. I will suggest a working knowledge of what makes private equity managers laugh shows the different ways investors understand their wealth and the political possibilities they recognize in its redistribution. And I will support this argument with data from fieldwork with private equity investors, mostly in New York City.

Daniel Souleles is a Lecturer in the Brandeis University Department of Anthropology. He studies wealth, poverty, and belief in the contemporary United States, and has done field work with monks, financiers, and employee-owned firms.

Don't Mix Paxil, Xanax and Viagra: What financiers' jokes say about inequality

Join TaL’s Aneil Tripathy and Caitlin Zaloom, NYU Associate Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis, as they discuss Zaloom’s research on futures markets and most recently student debt. They also reflect on the value of anthropology for studying the financial industry and powerful institutions. Hear about what initially drew Zaloom to study anthropology of finance and how she navigated conducting fieldwork at the Chicago Board of Trade as well as while working as a trader in London. 

Professor Zaloom and Aneil then reflect on how boundaries between the financial industry and other parts of society, such as households, are constructed and maintained, along with the impact of cities on the growth of finance. The discussion ends with a reflection on how anthropologists can speak to our moment in history and the importance of studying powerful institutions and what social dynamics support particular structures of power. Anthropology’s job is to denaturalize social systems, and it is especially important to do so in elite settings with powerful institutions such as those active in finance. 


Making Sense of Finance: Boundaries, Institutions, and Power with Caitlin Zaloom

Here’s the deal. This Anthropological Life is different from your typical current events or news program or pop culture talk show. But we’re legit. (Our listeners told us). We bring a lot of pieces of one picture to the table and assemble them in various ways, but do not attempt to configure one ‘correct’ way of seeing things. We don’t tell you what to think, but we do share ways of how to think more holistically. What news program can claim that? We use our training to show how complex our world truly is and how that’s a beautiful thing. We expose injustices by revealing often hidden assumptions in everyday language, technology use, or body gestures. We are driven by the values of increasing social consciousness, acceptance and promotion of diversity, honest inquiry, and promote these in an inclusive, entertaining way.

Instead of a ready made radio show, we bring you a weekly in-formation program drawing upon a blend of current events and news, pop culture, Anthro-speak (to help us think a little differently), and good old fashioned listening skills. But we give you more. Your hosts bring you a raw, unfiltered (except for curse words) take on this blend through our special mix of anthropological training and individual expertise (see our bios). We are formulating the story as we collect the pieces and as we tell it (and soon enough as you tell it too).

Weekly topics include anything from coffee and beer to the environment to light to technology usage to violence and memory. Anything that involves humans. It’s a massive world to explore and unpack, and we’re glad you’re along for the ride!
This Anthropological Life radio show broadcasts through Brandeis University and WBRS, co-hosted by the authors of this site. The radio program airs Mondays 11AM-12PM (Eastern) on WBRS 100.1 and wbrs.org
