New Books in Anthropology

By: New Books Network
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  • Summary

  • Interviews with Anthropologists about their New Books Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/anthropology
    New Books Network
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Science Social Sciences
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Episodes
  • Mia Consalvo et al., "Streaming by the Rest of Us: Microstreaming Videogames on Twitch" (MIT Press, 2025)

    Mia Consalvo et al., "Streaming by the Rest of Us: Microstreaming Videogames on Twitch" (MIT Press, 2025)
    Mar 14 2025
    The vast majority of people who stream themselves playing videogames online do so with few or no viewers. In Streaming by the Rest of Us: Microstreaming Videogames on Twitch (MIT Press, 2025) Dr. Mia Consalvo, Dr. Marc Lajeunesse, and Dr. Andrei Zanescu investigate who they are, why they do so, and why this form of leisure activity is important to understand. Unlike the esports athletes and streaming superstars who receive the lion's share of journalistic and academic attention, microstreamers are not in it for the money and barely have an audience. In this, the first book dedicated to the latter group, the authors gather interviews from dozens of microstreamers from 2017 to 2019 to discuss their lives, struggles, hopes, and goals. For readers interested in livestreaming, and Twitch in particular, the book rethinks the medium's history through accounts of the everyday uses of webcams, with particular attention to notions of liveness and authenticity. These two concepts have become calling cards for the videogame livestreaming platform and underlie streamer motivations, the construction of their practices (whether casual, serious, or anywhere in between), and the complex “metas” that take shape over time. The book also looks at the authors' own practices of livestreaming, focusing on what can be gained through experiencing the lived reality of the practice. Finally, the authors explain how Twitch's platform (studied from 2017–2023) informs how streamers structure their every day and how corporate ideologies bleed into real-world spaces like TwitchCon. This book is available open-access via the MIT Press website. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/anthropology
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    43 mins
  • Jennifer L. Freeman Marshall, "Ain't I an Anthropologist: Zora Neale Hurston Beyond the Literary Icon" (U Illinois Press, 2023)

    Jennifer L. Freeman Marshall, "Ain't I an Anthropologist: Zora Neale Hurston Beyond the Literary Icon" (U Illinois Press, 2023)
    Mar 11 2025
    Iconic as a novelist and popular cultural figure, Zora Neale Hurston remains underappreciated as an anthropologist. Is it inevitable that Hurston's literary authority should eclipse her anthropological authority? If not, what socio-cultural and institutional values and processes shape the different ways we read her work? Jennifer L. Freeman Marshall considers the polar receptions to Hurston's two areas of achievement by examining the critical response to her work across both fields. Drawing on a wide range of readings, Freeman Marshall explores Hurston's popular appeal as iconography, her elevation into the literary canon, her concurrent marginalization in anthropology despite her significant contributions, and her place within constructions of Black feminist literary traditions. Perceptive and original, Ain't I an Anthropologist (University of Illinois Press, 2023) is an overdue reassessment of Zora Neale Hurston's place in American cultural and intellectual life. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/anthropology
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    1 hr and 16 mins
  • Brendan A. Galipeau, "Crafting a Tibetan Terroir: Winemaking in Shangri-La" (U Washington Press, 2025)

    Brendan A. Galipeau, "Crafting a Tibetan Terroir: Winemaking in Shangri-La" (U Washington Press, 2025)
    Mar 6 2025
    Aiming to explore the Sino-Tibetan border region, which is renamed “Shangri-La” by the Chinese government for tourism promotion, Crafting a Tibetan Terroir (U Washington Press, 2025) examines how the deployment of the French notion of terroir creates new forms of ethno-regional identities and village landscapes through the production of Tibetan wine as a commodity. In Shangri-La, a rapidly developing international ethno-travel destination, European histories and global capitalism are being reestablished and reformulated through viticulture, which has altered landscapes and livelihoods. From the introduction of vineyards by nineteenth-century French and Swiss Catholic missionaries to make sacramental wine to twenty-first century commercialization, this ethnography documents the ways Tibetans are indigenizing modernity in the context of economic development on their own terms. It provides timely insight into China's rapid entry into the global wine market, highlighting the localized impacts of this emergent industry, which include transformation from subsistence agriculture to monocropping and intensified agrochemical use. It also addresses larger issues of international trade, suggesting that certain commodities - stimulants and intoxicants in particular - have long connected Europe and the Asia Pacific region, and that these connections are now being reconceived in fashioning new industries and identities. Brendan A. Galipeau is a Lecturer in Binghamton University’s Environmental Studies program. He is the author of Crafting a Tibetan Terroir: Winemaking in Shangri-La (University of Washington Press, 2025). His research and publications broadly focus on environmental and social change and human relations with nature in southwest China and Taiwan. Yadong Li is a socio-cultural anthropologist-in-training. He is registered as a PhD student at Tulane University. His research interests lie at the intersection of economic anthropology, medical anthropology, hope studies, and the anthropology of borders and frontiers. More details about his scholarship and research interests can be found here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/anthropology
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    1 hr and 19 mins

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