In much anthropological reflection on value creation through objects, value is conceptualized as created in circulation. Yet objects’ social lives are punctuated by periods of waiting as much as they are by movement. Waiting can thus be theorized and examined as a critical pause in the circulation of objects, one that enables their value transformation and creation via social actors, institutions,

In South Africa's urban hubs, young women are increasingly participating in the global fertility market by donating their eggs. Egg providers, who supply oocytes for others’ use in fertility treatment, are a key resource in the fertility market, and they are emblematic of new forms of biolabor. Egg markets have tapped into a precariously middle‐class population of young Black women in Johannesburg

Contemporary technoscience is rife with hype—inflated claims that rapidly propagate in favor of the next “new thing.” While scholars often strive to debunk and dispel hype, Tanzanian technologists working in health care face a different challenge: navigating hype. As these technologists embark on new projects in machine learning and other forms of AI, contending with hype becomes crucial. These actors

Political risk forecasting is an industry that provides specialized analysis to a range of clients, including insurance companies, extractive industries, governments, defense ministries, and NGOs. Risk forecasters aim to help their clients mitigate risks by anticipating political developments that could threaten their investments and assets, especially in the “emerging markets” of the Global South

On November 13, 2020, the Sahrawi movement for national liberation, known as the Polisario Front, resumed its armed struggle against Morocco's occupation of Western Sahara. With this decision, the movement put an end to a 29‐year‐long peace process throughout which the implementation of international law had been indefinitely deferred. During this cease‐fire, the Polisario used humanitarian aid to

British Muslim volunteers in Syria have been variously cast as humanitarians, activists, and—under the suspicious gaze of the war on terror—disguised militants. Yet many volunteers frame their efforts as attempts at iṣlāḥ (reform, repair, rectification). What is the ethicopolitical life of iṣlāḥ, a multivalent concept in the Islamic tradition, in a landscape marked by war and international relief efforts

The chilling infiltration by technologies of state power that make up modern governance is brought home by each of the articles in AE’s “Citizenship, Solidarity, and Nonbelonging” forum. In reflecting on them, I pose the question: Can we move beyond descriptions of human agency entirely within the cracks and fissures of state governance? Or can we develop a richer futural imagination that goes beyond

Contemporary white supremacy often takes hold through strategies of racial disavowal. One strategy that political parties and regular citizens in Bulgaria use is what I call determined indeterminacy. Determined indeterminacy is a collective, institutionalized method of denying the ubiquitous systemic racism that undergirds social life. It allows people to naturalize white supremacy and render it adaptably