Literary anthropology: A user's guide

Abstract

This essay reflects on the recent return to the literary within anthropological thinking and writing and places it in conversation with wider dynamics. To do so, we outline the general conditions of this movement, describe the features that constitute a spectrum of literary anthropological works, argue that these features may enable distinctive modes of anthropological engagement with affective economies, political rationalities, and the crisis of critique in social science, and offer some preliminary guidelines for crafting ethnographic projects in these directions. We aim to call attention to a movement that is still emerging and provide initial provocations for further discussion and debate.