Explanipedia

The uniqueness of Ernest Gellner Open

Chris Hann · 2025

This article presents a personal appraisal of Ernest Gellner (1925‐1995) on the centenary of his birth, examining his trajectory from childhood in inter‐war Prague through British academia to his final years establishing nationalism studie…

Anthropology, Science and Politics: Renewing the Vocation Open

Chris Hann · 2025

In Germany, the discipline known traditionally as Völkerkunde or Ethnologie is currently (as a result of Anglophone dominance) being rebranded as Sozial- und Kulturanthropologie. Irrespective of the name, as a holistic field of enquiry, an…

Frontmatter Open

Stephen Gudeman, Chris Hann · 2024

The Gypsy condition in Kiskunhalas: work, consumption, and indebtedness after socialism Open

Chris Hann · 2024

The article outlines the recent history of the Gypsy minority in the town of Kiskunhalas, Bács-Kiskun county, with an emphasis on its changing economic situation. Gypsy households benefited from secure employment until the late 1980s. Some…

Review Essay Open

Chris Hann · 2023

Scott Cook, Exploring Commodities. An Anthropologist on the Trails of Malinowski and Traven in Mexico. Oxford: Peter Lang, pp. 246. 2021. Stephen Gudeman, Enlightening Encounters. The Journeys of an Anthropologist. New York: Berghahn, pp. …

On peoples, history, and sovereignty Open

Chris Hann · 2023

The article opens with materials from the author's research among east Slavs in Poland: a close-up portrayal of villagers classified as Ukrainians in the Polish People's Republic, some of whom had no developed national consciousness; and a…

Creative Friction, Folklore, or Foreign Body? Religious Minorities in Civilizational Encounters in Central Europe and Central Asia Open

Chris Hann · 2023

Taxation and the Polanyian forms of integration in socialist and postsocialist Hungary Open

Chris Hann · 2023

Reciprocity, redistribution, and (market) exchange were the “forms of integration” put forward by Karl Polanyi as a “special tool box” to investigate relations between economy and society where the principle of price‐forming markets is not…

Acknowledgments Open

Brigitte Baptandier, Tan Chee‐Beng, Ellen Hertz, Frank N. Pieke, Mi- Chael Puett , et al. · 2022

During my stay at the Max Planck Institute in the spring of 2016, I spent much time with Meixuan Chen discussing the similarities and differences between the still-rural emigration village in the Meixian region of Guangdong Province that s…

A Life in Central Europe Open

Chris Hann · 2022

The life and work of János Horváth (an ethnic German whose original surname was Mayer) are emblematic of the transformations Hungary went through in the second half of the 20th century. His contributions to education, politics, administrat…

Frontmatter Open

Stephen Gudeman, Chris Hann · 2022

Frontmatter Open

Max Planck, Stephen Gudeman, Chris Hann · 2022

Defi nitions of economy and society, and their proper relationship to each other, have been the perennial concerns of social philosophers.In the early decades of the twenty-fi rst century these became and remain matters of urgent political…

The economic anthropologist as romantic bricoleur Open

Chris Hann · 2022

More than 50 years after the writing of the papers assembled as Stone Age Economics , the author’s voice has been silenced. That immense contribution has been the subject of numerous reassessments. The volume contains all his important wor…

Economy and ethics in the cosmic process <sup>⋆</sup> Open

Chris Hann · 2021

When T.H. Huxley lectured on evolution and ethics in 1893, his critique of the amoral laws of the ‘cosmic process’ left his audience puzzled. While Huxley paid little attention to political and economic institutions, this article draws att…

Neoliberal Capitalism and Visegrád Countermovements Open

Chris Hann, Gábor Scheiring · 2021

The four Visegrad countries (V4) are widely perceived to be undermining liberal democracy and the stability of the European Union they joined in 2004. The essays in this special issue approach this...

Review: Rachel Harris, Soundscapes of Uyghur Islam Open

Chris Hann · 2021

In search of civil society: From peasant populism to postpeasant illiberalism in provincial Hungary Open

Chris Hann · 2020

The need to rebuild civil society was a prominent theme in dissident writings in East-Central Europe in late socialism, but the revival of this concept deserves close scrutiny and local contextualization. This article identifies two curren…

The seductions of Europe and the solidarities of Eurasia Open

Chris Hann · 2019

Almost 40 years ago, when I was doing fieldwork in Poland, the word Solidarity was on everyone’s lips. One of the popular rallying cries, here and elsewhere in the region, was that of “rejoining Europe”. Similar ebullience was found in man…

Eurasian Dynamics: From Agrarian Axiality to the Connectivities of the Capitalocene Open

Chris Hann · 2019

This introductory paper outlines a frame that places the dynamics of the Eurasian landmass (flexibly defined) at the centre of world history in the last three millennia. Concepts of culture area, civilization and world system are criticall…

Marketization and development on a European periphery: From peasant <i>oikos</i> to socialism and neoliberal capitalism on the Danube-Tisza interfluve Open

Chris Hann · 2018

The modern term economy is associated above all with market exchange. But it derives from the Greek oikos, which for Aristotle referred to the well-managed estate, able to withstand the forces of supply and demand by virtue of a high degre…

Multiscalar Narrative Identities: Individual and Nation, Europe and Eurasia Open

Chris Hann · 2018

The paper explores narratives of identity on multiple scales between the individual and the Eurasian landmass, taking the various identities of Cracow‑born anthropologist Bronisław Malinowski as a leitmotiv to illustrate the main arguments…

Moral(ity and) Economy Open

Chris Hann · 2018

The relationship between morality and economy has been muddied in the course of disciplinary specialization. While dominant paradigms in economics abstract from the moral dimension, recent approaches to morality and ethics in anthropology …

Universalismus hinterfragen, Eigentumsbegriffe hinterfragen: Open

Chris Hann · 2018

John Rankine Goody, 1919-2015 Open

Chris Hann · 2018

Preface: recognizing Eurasia Open

Chris Hann · 2018

Anthropology and Civilizational Analysis: Eurasian Explorations Open

Jóhann P. Árnason, Chris Hann · 2018

Social Imaginaries of the State and Central Authority in Polish Highland Villages, 1999–2005. By Anna Malewska-Szałygin. Trans. Aniela Korzeniowska and Stefan Sikora. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2017. x, 299 pp. Appendix. Bibliography. £61.99, hard bound. Open

Chris Hann · 2018

Social Imaginaries of the State and Central Authority in Polish Highland Villages, 1999–2005. By Anna Malewska-Szałygin. Trans. Aniela Korzeniowska and Stefan Sikora. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2017. x, 299 pp. App…

Economic Anthropology Open

Chris Hann · 2017

For almost a century, economic anthropology has formed a fairly coherent field at the interface between sociocultural anthropology and economics. Many anthropologists are suspicious of economists' concepts and some question the very notion…

Migration und Integration aus der Perspektive der Visegrád-Staaten und -Gesellschaften Open

Chris Hann · 2017

Making Sense of Eurasia: Reflections on Max Weber and Jack Goody Open

Chris Hann · 2017

The concept of Eurasia is a muddle. In this article it is argued, following the British social anthropologist Jack Goody, that the landmass exhibits important commanalities, which date back to the agrarian empires and urban cultures of the…

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