About Ethnographic Emergency

Ethnographic Emergency is a web log devoted to analyzing contemporary debates and events from an anthropological perspective.

Why “Ethnographic Emergency”? Some years ago, in an anthropology graduate seminar discussion on humanitarian intervention, someone joked that no one ever calls anthropologists in for ‘ethnographic interventions.’ And why the hell not? There are crucial situations and events whose analysis could benefit from the kinds of critiques developed through extended engagement in a particular place or within a ‘culture.’

Ethnographic Emergency is managed by Adia Benton, a social and medical anthropologist, and assistant professor of anthropology and African Studies at Northwestern University.