McGill Anthropology Speaker Series

Fall 2023

Monday, September 18

Prof. Stefanie Graeter, University of Arizona

Topic: TBD

12:30 - 14:30 PETH 108


Monday, October 2

Prof. Christina Halperin, Universite de Montreal

Topic: TBD

12:30 - 14:30 PETH 116


Thursday, October 19

Prof. Aldon Morris, Northwestern University

Topic: TBD

 

 

Winter 2022

Monday, February 21

Prof. Susan Lepselter, Indiana University

Topic: “Left Standing” – A Performance of written and video ethnographic poetics.

12:30 - 14:30 Online


Monday, March 28

Prof. Natacha Nsabimana, University of Chicago

Topic: "Reburying the Dead of 1994 and Rethinking Historic Time in Rwanda”

12:30 - 14:30 Online


Monday, April 11

Jasmine Pisapia, Grégoire Hervouet-Zeiber, Marina Alamo Bryan (McGill, Columbia University)

Topic: Anthropology Speakers Series Roundtable

12:30 - 14:30 Online


Fall 2021

Friday, September 24

Prof. Eldon Yellowhorn, Simon Fraser University
Topic: Finding Indigenous Children: Forensic Anthropology and Restorative Justice
12:30 - 14:30 Online

Monday, October 18

Prof. Andrew Martindale, University of East Anglia
Topic: Quantifying Uncertainty: The Challenges Using Ground-penetrating Radar to Identify Unmarked Graves in Residential School Contexts
12:30 - 14:30 Online

Monday, October 25

Prof. Hiba Bou Akar, Columbia University
Topic: Sedimented Futures: On Housing and War Displacement in Beirut, Lebanon
12:30 - 14:30 Online

Monday, November 8

Prof. Marco Motta, Institute of Ethnology, University of Neuchâtel
Topic: The Bewitchment of our Intelligence: Skepticism about Other Minds in Anthropology
12:30 - 14:30   PETH 116 & Online

Monday, November 15

Prof. Kisha Supernant, University of Alberta
Topic: Uncovering the Past, Creating the Future: The Role of Archaeology in Restorative Justice in Canada
12:30 - 14:30 PETH 116 & Online


Winter 2021

Friday January 29

Prof. Valentina Napolitano, University of Toronto

Theopolitics and its apophatic force: anthropology and the labor of the negative

12:30 - 14:00

Monday February 1

Prof. Rudy Reimer, Simon Fraser University

How can archaeological media serve as a path to reconciling colonial interpretations?

12:30 - 14:30

Monday February 15

Prof. Cathy Crane and Dr. Miranda Dahlin, McGill University

Crossing Columbus                                      

12:30 - 14:30

Friday February 26

Prof. Ernst Karel and Veronika Kusumaryati, Harvard University

Expedition Content                                      

12:30 - 14:30

Monday March 15

Dr. Gregoire Hervouet-Zeiber, McGill University

'Finding Oneself in Civilian Life': Wars and their Domesticities in Putin’s Russia

12:30 - 14:00

Monday April 12

Professor Jarett Zigon, University of Virginia

How is it between us?

12:30 - 14:30

Monday April 19

Dr. Viviane Saglier, McGill University

Prefiguring Rights: Film Infrastructures as Facts on the Ground in Palestine

12:30 - 14:30

Monday April 26

Dr. Paul Codjia, McGill University

Governing with Visions: Ritual, Affect, and the Paradox of Political Leadership among the Wampis (peruvian amazon)

12:30 - 14:30

Past Events

Winter 2020


Winter 2020

Monday January 13

Samuel Veissière, McGill University

Thinking Through Other Minds: A Variational Approach to Cognition and Culture

12:30, LEA 738

Friday January 17

Majd Al-Shihabi, Co-founder of MASRAD

My grandmother is my archive: Open source software and democracy in archival practice

12:30 – 2:00 Peterson Hall 116

Saturday January 18

McGill Refugee Research Group Lecture Series, co-sponsored by Department of Anthropology and ISID and STAND Workshop.

Palestine Open Maps Mapathon with Majd Al-Shihabi

1:00 – 4:00 Leacock 738

Monday, January 20

Deborah Thomas R. Jean Brownlee Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania, and Director, Center for Experimental Ethnography

Anthropology, Multi-modality, Decoloniality

12:30-2:30 Peterson 116

Thursday January 30

Behrouz Boochani (Independent Writer) in Conversation with Laura Madokoro

(Associate Professor, Carleton University)

And screening of Chauka, Please Tell Us the Time (2017)

4:00 – 6:00

Location TBC

McGill Refugee Research Group Lecture Series, co-sponsored by Department of Anthropology and ISID

Thursday February 13

Rosalind Morris, Department of Anthropology, Columbia University

Workshop to be given in the afternoon, precise time and place to be announced

Friday February 14

Rosalind Morris Department of Anthropology, Columbia University

The Gamblers - A multi-media installation and discussion

The Black Box, EV Building, OS3-845/855, Concordia University. Co-sponsored with Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Society andd Culture (CISSC), Concordia University, African Studies Working Group (Concordia University), and Film Studies Department (Concordia University)

Monday February 24

Andrew Bauer Stanford University

Archaeology and the Politics and Publics of Climate Change

12:30-2:30, Peterson Hall

A workshop with Andrew Bauer will be held after February 24th. Time and venue TBA.

Monday March 9

Martina Tazzioli, Lecturer in Politics and Technology, Goldsmiths, University of London.

The Making of Migration: The Biopolitics of Mobility at Europe's Borders

4:00 – 6:00

Location TBC.

McGill Refugee Research Group Lecture Series, co-sponsored by Department of Anthropology and ISID

Monday, March 16

Caitlin Procter, Max Weber Fellow, European University Institute

Gaza and the March of Return protests

And screening of Gaza (2019), dir. Andrew McConnell and Gary Keane

4:00 – 6:00

Location TBC

McGill Refugee Research Group Lecture Series, co-sponsored by Department of Anthropology and ISID

Monday April 1(CANCELLED)

Cristiana Giordano, Department of Anthropology, University of California -Davis

In dialogue with Lisa Stevenson (McGill, Anthropology), and screening of Era Un Lunes

4:00 – 6:00

Location TBC

McGill Refugee Research Group Lecture Series, co-sponsored by Department of Anthropology and ISID

April 16 -17 (CANCELLED)

Workshop Anthropology of Knowledge and The Politics of Translation

Organized by Milad Odabaei, Andrew Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Anthropology, McGill University


Times and Location TBD

Fall 2019

Mon., September 23

Fadi Bardawil (Duke University) "Theory’s Resistances: Translating the 1960s Arab Left and the Current Revolutions (2011-)"  12:30, LEA 738

Thurs., October 17

Lynn Meskell (Stanford University) "Engineering Internationalism: Colonialism, the Cold War and UNESCO's Victory in Nubia" 17:00, Le Salon, Musée de Beaux Arts

Mon., October 28

Emanuele Coccia (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris ) "The city of the future: the museum of contemporary nature" 12:30 , LEA 738

Mon. November 4

Frédéric Keck, (CNRS Research Director, Laboratoire d'Anthropologie Sociale) “Workshop and discussion of his forthcoming Book: Avian Reservoirs : Virus Hunters and Birdwatchers in Chinese Sentinel Posts.” 16:00, EDUC 434

Fri. November 8

James Ferguson, (Stanford University) "Rightful Shares and the Claims of Presence: Distributive Politics beyond Labor and Citizenship", 16:00- 18:00, Redpath Museum

Thurs. November 14 (CANCELLED)

Kristin Norget, Daniel Ceres and Erik Kuhonta Anthropology of Catholicism: A panel discussion

Fri. November 15 (CANCELLED)

Valentina Napolitano (University of Toronto) "Borders Incarnated: notes on an anthropology-theology (un)awkward relation" 13:00 - 15:00, LEA738

Fall 2018

Mon., September 17

Professor Junko Habu (University of California Berkeley) "Jomon Food Diversity, Climate Change and Long-term Sustainability" 12:30 - 14:00, Peterson Hall 116

Tues., October 9

Prof. Alireza Doostdar (University of Chicago) "Islam, Science, and the Gender of Reason" 16:00, Birks SCR

Thurs., October 18

Professor Miriam Ticktin (The New School) "Care Beyond Innocence" 12:30 - 14:00, Arts 160

Tues. November 6

Prof. Noah Salomon, (Carleton University) “For Love of the Prophet: The Art of Islamic State-Making in Sudan”, Birks SCR

Wed. December 5

Prof. Liz Roberts, (University of Michigan) "Bioethnography as Method", 16:30- 18:00, Room 101, 3647 Peel Street.

Winter 2018

Fri., Jan 19

Mayanthi Fernando (UC Santa Cruz), Michael Allan (University of Oregon), Kabir Tambar (Stanford University); "Religion and Politics in a Secular Age" 12:30 - 2:00 pm, Peterson Hall 116

Fri., Feb 23

Heath Cabot (University of Pittsburgh); The European Refugee Crisis And Humanitarian Citizenship in Greece, 12:30 - 2:00 pm, Peterson Hall 116

Mon., Feb 26

Homa Hoodfar (Emerita Concordia University); Framing Academic Freedom And Critical Thinking As Trasnational Rights: Re-Envisioning The 1997 UNESCO Document, 12:30 - 2:00 pm, Peterson Hall 116

Wed., Mar 21

Mette Risor (Department of Community Medicine, General Practice Research Unit, UiT The Arctic University of Norway); Subjectivities At Stake: The Crafting of Agency And Personhood During Clinical Assessment of CFS, 12:30 - 2:30 pm, Peterson Hall 116

Mon., Mar 26

David Nolin (Postdoctoral scholar, Pennsylvania State University); Pulling Together: The Behavioral Ecology of Cooperative Hunting in Lamalera, Indonesia, 12:30 - 2:00 pm, Peterson Hall 116

Mon., Apr 9

Jean-Michel Landry (Banting Postdoctoral Fellow, McGill University); Ethics As A Vocation. SHI'I Clerical Training in Lebanon, 12:30 - 2:00 pm, Peterson Hall 116

Fall 2017

Mon., Sep. 25

Saida Hodzic (Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology and Feminist, Gender and Sexuality Studies Cornell University); "Anthropology Debris: NGO Governance and the Ends of Cutting in Ghana;" 12:30 - 2:00 pm, Peterson Hall 116.

Mon., Oct. 16

Jon Altman (Associate Professor, Department of Law, Societies, and Justice and the Director, University of Washington's Middle East Center) "Contestations over the Environmental Governance of Indigenous Lands in Australia in the Age of ‘Punitive Neoliberalism"; 12:30-2pm Peterson Hall 116.

Tues. Oct. 24

Arzoo Osanloo (Associate Professor, Department of Law, Societies, and Justice and Director, University of Washington's Middle East Center) "Embodied Forbearance: Mercy and Mediation in Iranian Criminal Law", 4:30-6pm TNC, Morrice Hall

Fri., Nov. 10

Maple Rasza (Associate Professor and Director of Global Studies, Colby College) "The Maribor Uprisings: Toward a Participatory Form of Visual Ethnography", 12:30-2 pm Education 613

Fri., Nov. 24

Abou Farman (Assistant Professor of Anthropology, The New School for Social Research) "Aneasthetic, Synaesthetic: Making Senses of the Afterlife in 3 Acts"; November 24, 12:30-2 pm, Peterson Hall 116

Winter 2017

Mon., Feb. 6

Jesse Casana (Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, Dartmouth); "Artifacts of Settlement: Mapping of Archaeological Landscapes of the Northern Fertile Crescent;" 12:30-2:00pm, 3460 rue McTavish, Peterson Hall Room 116.

Tues., Feb. 7

Margaret Lock (Marjory Bronfman Professor Emerita, Department of Social Studies of Medicine/Department of Anthropology, McGill University), delivered the Huxley Memorial Lecture, "Mutable Environments and Permeable Human Bodies;” 5:00-7:00 p.m., Leacock Bldg. Rm. 232. Watch the lecture.

Mon., Feb. 20

Michael Asch (Professor Emeritus, University of Alberta; Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Victoria); “On Being Here to Stay: A Conversation on Resolving Political Relations between Indigenous Peoples and the Settler State;” 12:30-2:00pm, 3460 rue McTavish, Peterson Hall Room 116.

Mon., Apr. 3

Danielle Groleau (Associate Professor, Division of Social & Transcultural Psychiatry, McGill University; Culture and Mental Health Research Unit, Lady Davis Medical Institute, Jewish General Hospital); “The Psychological Experience of Female Genital Mutilation in Nigeria: Cultural Relativism or Human Rights? – a WHO Study;” 12:30-2:00pm, 3460 rue McTavish, Peterson Hall Room 116.

Fall 2016

“Land Issues and the Global Indigenous Rights Movement among San Hunter-Gatherers in Southern Africa: A Comparison of Two Cases from Botswana and South Africa.”

Junko Maruyama, Associate Professor, Department of International and Cultural Studies, Tsuda College, Tokyo

Monday, October 31, 12:30-2pm, Peterson Hall, Room 116, 3460 rue McTavish

“Traditional Stores and the Architecture of Cigarette Circulation in Indonesia.”

Marina Welker, Department of Anthropology, Cornell University

Friday, November 11, 12:30-2pm, Peterson Hall, Room 116, 3460 rue McTavish

“Poverty and the Quest for Life: Spiritual and Material Striving in Contemporary India.”

Bhrigupati Singh, Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, Brown University

Wednesday, November 16. 12:30-2pm, Peterson Hall, Room 116, 3460 rue McTavish

“Abundance: Uneven Inclusion at an Andean Resource Frontier”

Eric Hirsch, Institute for the Study of International Development, McGill University

Monday, November 28, 12:30-2pm, Peterson Hall, Room 116, 3460 rue McTavish

Winter 2016

"The Opossum and the Coyote, Thirty Years Later: From farmers’ co-op to territorial defence in the northeastern Sierra de Puebla (Mexico)"

Pierre Beaucage, Professeur émérite, Département d'anthropologie, Université de Montréal

Friday, January 15, 12:30-2:00pm, Peterson Hall, Room 116, 3460 rue McTavish

"New directions in psychiatric anthropology: Cultural phenomenology, critical neuroscience, and global mental health"

Laurence Kirmayer, James McGill Professor and Director, Division of Social and Transcultural Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, McGill University

Friday, January 29, 12:30-2:00pm, Peterson Hall, Room 116, 3460 rue McTavish

"Cosmopolitan Maya Women: Rethinking Interregional Interactions during the Terminal Classic to Postclassic periods (ca. 800-1521 CE)"

Christina Halperin, Professeure adjointe, Département d'anthropologie, Université de Montréal

Friday, February 5, 12:30-2:00pm, Peterson Hall, Room 116, 3460 rue McTavish.

“Memories of Childhood: Genre, Autobiography, and Voice”

Clara Han, Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, Johns Hopkins University

Friday, March 11, 12:30-2:00pm, Peterson Hall, Room 116, 3460 rue McTavish

“Wildlife Conservation, Land Use Conflicts, and Indigenous Peoples’ Rights in Zimbabwe”

Robert Hitchcock, Professor of Geography and adjunct faculty member, Department of Anthropology, Michigan State University

Wednesday, March 16, 12:30-2:00pm, Peterson Hall, Room 116, 3460 rue McTavish

“Reflections on critical archaeological practices in the Near East: Notes from the field”

Arnulf Hausleiter, Visiting Research Scholar, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University

Monday, March 21, 12:30-2:00pm, Peterson Hall, Room 116, 3460 rue McTavish

“The Pandemic Perhaps: Notes on Faith and Reason”

Carlo Caduff, Department of Social Science, Health and Medicine, King’s College London

Wednesday, April 6, 12:30-2:00pm, Peterson Hall, Room 116, 3460 rue McTavish

“Images, Image Wars and the Study of Religion”

Birgit Meyer, Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, University of Utrecht

Thursday, April 7, 5:30pm, Rm 767, Hall Building, 1455 de Maisonneuve W., Concordia University

(co-sponsored by the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Society and Culture, the Global Emergent Media Lab, the Departments of Religion, Communication Studies, and Social and Cultural Anthropology, the Office of the Vice-President, Research and Graduate Studies, Concordia University; and the Department of Anthropology, McGill University)

Fall 2015

"One World Anthropology"

Tim Ingold, Chair in Social Anthropology, University of Aberdeen

Friday, October 9, 12:30-2:00pm, Peterson Hall, Room 116, 3460 rue McTavish

Public Lecture: “Husband-Killing in Chicago and the New Unwritten Law”

Thursday, November 12, 5-7 pm, Faculty of Law, New Chancellor Day Hall, Room 313

Seminar: “How Legal Speech Acts”

Friday, November 13, 1:00-2:30 pm, Faculty of Law, New Chancellor Day Hall, Room 202

Marianne Constable, Professor of Rhetoric, University of California, Berkeley

(co-sponsored by Crépeau Centre for Private and Comparative Law, Katharine A. Pearson Chair in Civil Society and Public Policy, Dean of Arts Development Fund, Legal Theory Workshop, Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism, Department of Anthropology, Critical Social Theory, Institute for the Public Life of Arts and Ideas)

"Hope for China’s Environmental Crises Lies in Public Participation"

Libo, Consultant and Editor-in-Chief, Green Cover Book - Annual Review of China's Environment

Friday, December 4, 12:30-2:00pm, Peterson Hall, Room 116, 3460 rue McTavish

(co-sponsored by STandD [Centre for Society, Technology and Development], CICADA [Centre for Indigenous Conservation and Development Alternatives] and the Department of Anthropology)

Fall 2014

Political Therapeutics in Contemporary Italy

Cristiana Giordano, University of California Davis

Monday, September 22

(co-sponsored with the McGill Division of Social and Transcultural Psychiatry)

Wasting or Making Time and Space?  Sweeping and Tattooing in the Mozambican Woodlands

Ingrid Nelson, University of Vermont

Monday, October 6, 4:00-5:00 pm, Burnside Hall 426

(co-sponsored with the McGill Department of Geography)

Mesolithic Hunter-Fisher-Gatherer Research in Ireland

Killian Driscoll, Banting Postdoctoral Fellow, Université de Montréal

Monday, October 20

Resilience and Hope amidst Conflict and Despair: Civil Society, NGOs, and Development in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Patience Kabamba, Visiting Fellow, University of Pennsylvania

Monday, October 27 (pending confirmation)

When Worldings Meet, and Matters of Concern Run out of Esteem

Mario Blaser, Memorial University

Monday, November 3

The Tyranny of the Commons, a Critical Perspective from the Peruvian Andes

Ingrid Hall, Université de Montréal 

Monday, December 1


Previous Years

Gaia, Anthropology and the Law

Bruno Latour, Professor Science Po

Friday, March 21, 4-6pm Chancellor Day Hall : Maxwell Cohen Moot
Court (room 100), 3644 rue Peel Montreal Quebec Canada

(co-sponsored with Law, Pearson Chair, Situating Science)

Time on Device: Slot Machine Design and the Turn Away from Risk in Gambling

Natasha Schull, Associate Professor, MIT, Program in Science, Technology, and Society

Thursday, April 10, 5:15, Arts W-215

(co-sponsored with Wolfe Chair and Media@McGill)

Is the Law Hopeful?

Annelise Riles, Jack G. Clarke Professor of Far East Legal Studies and Professor of
Anthropology at Cornell University Law School

Monday February 3, 4-6 pm, Chancellor Day Hall: Common Room, 3644
rue Peel

(co-sponsored with the Pearson Chair in Civil Society and Public Policy)

Los Exvotos Pictográficos Guadalupanos: Reglas Tradicionales y Transformaciones Mediáticas

Margarita Zires, Universidad Autónoma de México, Xochimilco, Mexico

(co-sponsored with the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures
and the Latin American and Carribbean Studies Interdisciplinary Program)

Metrics of the Global Sovereign: Numbers and Stories in Global Health

Vincanne Adams, Professor, University of California, San Francisco,
Department of Anthropology, History and Social Medicine

(co-sponsored with SSOM)

Workshop: Fieldwork After Ethnos

George Marcus, Professor, Department of Anthropology UC Irvine;
Tobias Rees, Assistant Professor SSOM, McGill;
Katherine Lemons, Assistant Professor, Anthropology McGill (discussant)

(co sponsored with SSOM)

Prototyping & Contemporary Anthropological
Experiments with Ethnographic Method

George Marcus, Professor, Department of Anthropology, UC Irvine

(co-sponsored with SSOM, Concordia Department of Sociology and Anthropology,
CEREV Centre for Ethnographic Research and Exhibition in the Aftermath of Violence)

Repatriation and the Second Life of Heritage: Return of the Masks in Kodiak, Alaska

James Clifford, Emeritus Professor in the History of Consciousness
Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz

(co-sponsored with Department of Communication Studies, Concordia University)


The Great Chinese Grasslands and the Fate of Their Pastoral Peoples.

Philip Salzman, Professor, Department of Anthropology, McGill University
 

The Fog of Humanitarian War: the Indistinguishability of Warriors, Enemies, Victims, and Saviors

Mariella Pandolfi, Professor, Department of Anthropology, Université de Montréal
 

Ethnographic Film Screenings and Q & A with Harvard Sensory Ethnography Lab Filmmakers

Lucien Taylor, Professor Anthropology Harvard University;
J.P Sniadecki, Assistant Professor Department of Performing and Media Arts, Cornell University;
Stephanie Spray, Harvard University

(co-sponsored with RIDM Montreal International Documentary Festival)

Films:

Songhua

J. P. Sniadecki, 2007

Yumen

Xu Ruotao, J.P. Sniadecki and Huang Xiang, 2013

People's Park

Libbie D. Cohn and J.P. Sniadecki, 2012

An Audio Performance

Ernst Karel, Émilie Payeur

Manakamana

Stephanie Spray and Pacho Velez, 2013

Foreign Parts

Véréna Paravel and J.P. Sniadecki, 2010

Roundtable with Harvard Sensory Ethnography Lab Filmmakers

Lucien Taylor, Professor of Visual Arts and Anthropology Harvard University;
J.P Sniadecki, Assistant Professor Department of Performing and Media Arts, Cornell University;
Stephanie Spray, Harvard University;
Lisa Stevenson; Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, McGill (moderator)

(co-sponsored with RIDM Montreal International Documentary Festival)

Films:

As Long As There's Breath

Stephanie Spray, 2009

Sweetgrass

Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Ilisa Barbash, 2009

Leviathan

Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Vérèna Paravel, 2013

Fieldwork in Photography

Dr. Robert Desjarlais, Professor of Anthropology, Sarah Lawrence College, 
Berkeley CA

Capitalism after Progress: Salvage Accumulation on Blasted Landscapes

Dr. Anna Tsing, Professor of Anthropology, University of California Santa Cruz

(co-sponsored with the Department of Anthropology, Concordia University)

What would the world look like if we examined it without expectations of progress?  This talk offers a taste from my “Living in Ruins” project, in which a charismatic wild mushroom helps me view the world through disturbed forests and displaced rural people—that is, through humans and nonhumans negotiating progress’s ruins.  Capitalism certainly looks different from this perspective.  Suddenly it is clear that capitalism can never be self-contained; accumulation is always salvaged for capitalism from non-capitalist social landscapes, including the ruined industrial forests of my mushroom study.  How could we have missed this?  Without the blinders of progress, the riches of global heterogeneity come into view, both terrible and sweet.

Workshop on Excerpts from Anna Tsing's "Living in Ruins" Manuscript*

Dr. Anna Tsing, Professor of Anthropology, University of California Santa Cruz

(co-sponsored with the Department of Anthropology, Concordia University)

Title TBA

Dr. Betsey Brada, Ph.D Anthropology, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Center for Health and Well-Being, Princeton University

(co-sponsored with SSOM)

When Law and Social Science Diverge: Causation in the International Law of Incitement to Commit Genocide

Dr. Richard Wilson, Gladstein Professor of Human Rights, Professor of Anthropology and Law, Human Rights Institute, University of Connecticut

Debt, Credit and the “End” of Finance in Post-Fukushima Japan

Dr. Hiro Miyazaki, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Cornell University

(co-sponsored with SSOM and the Wolfe Chair in Scientific and Technological Literacy)

The ongoing global financial crisis suggests that the era in which finance served as a site of vigorous intellectual and socio-economic experiment may have come to an end. This sense of the end of finance has particularly intensified in Tokyo. Theories, techniques and conceptual tools of finance designed to manage and profit from risk have served as means of socio-economic reform in Japan since the burst of the economic bubble in the early 1990s. Financial market professionals have been a major force behind the promotion of a new culture of risk and responsibility. Following the global financial crisis of 2007-2008, however, Tokyo is quickly losing its status as a global financial center, and Tokyo’s financial market professionals now face new challenges ranging from frequent lay-offs and downsizing to a sheer lack of intellectual excitement.

In this context, Japan’s triple disasters on March 11, 2011, and the profound uncertainty of the world that the disasters have revealed, have presented a new layer of challenges to Tokyo’s financial market professionals. In particular, the accident at Fukushima Dai’ichi Nuclear Power Plant created a financial crisis of its own. Its operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), a major supplier of electricity in the greater Tokyo area, was what many perceived as one of the most financially stable companies and was the biggest issuer of corporate bonds in Japan prior to the accident. After the disasters, major Japanese financial institutions, such as mega banks and insurance companies, were suddenly exposed to a wide range of risks associated with TEPCO’s large corporate debt as well as lawsuits and massive compensation claims against the utility company. These risks quickly became major sources of anxiety and profit opportunity for Tokyo’s financial market professionals.

In this paper, drawing on my ethnographic field research in Tokyo in 2011 and 2012, I examine two contrasting market responses to the TEPCO crisis orchestrated by Tokyo’s financial market professionals in the months following the disasters, as manifestations of these professionals’ conscious efforts to re-deploy theories and techniques of finance in a newly found sphere of profound uncertainty. I offer these ethnographic examples as illustrations not only of problems associated with the specificity and peculiarity of Japan’s debt and credit markets but also of a more general question of how theoretical, technical and professional commitments are made anew.

Hirokazu Miyazaki is Director of the East Asia Program and Associate Professor of Anthropology at Cornell University. He has studied indigenous Fijian gift giving and Japanese derivatives trading. He is the author of The Method of Hope: Anthropology, Philosophy, and Fijian Knowledge (Stanford University Press, 2004) and Arbitraging Japan: Dreams of Capitalism at the End of Finance (University of California Press, 2013).

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