The articles, insights, musings and analyses posted here shine a light on how relationships between parliaments, politicians and people are configured in different places and spaces, across a range of contexts and cultures.
Dalits in parliamentary politics: caste violence and local democracy in India
by Jayaseelan Raj, King’s College London India is often hailed as the ‘largest democracy’ in the world. Despite many criticisms, much of the discussion has been on resilient ...
A collaborative inquiry in the Texas State Legislature
A conversation between Nicholas Sarra and Emma Crewe about doing ethnography with politicians and activists in Texas In January 2023 Emma Crewe, an anthropologist from London, visited the Texas ...
Modern parliamentary facilities enhance work of African legislatures
China has been donating parliament buildings to African countries that do not yet have purpose-built facilities of their own. However, to date the impact of these buildings on the ...
Beyond the numbers: Ethnographic insights on women as politicians
Based on fieldwork in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, Vidya Venkat argues that poll statistics do not fully capture the complexity of women’s participation in electoral contests. ...
Fiji 2022 elections: youths voting in the shadow of coups and authoritarianism
Jastinder Kaur reflects on the 2022 general election in Fiji, drawing on her research as a political anthropologist of Fiji politics, coups, and society. ...
Ethiopia and Eritrea’s apocalyptic campaign on the last Nilotic people in Northern Ethiopia: the Kunama
Mitiku Gabrehiwot Tesfaye writes about the Kunama, a group of people living in northwestern Tigray, Ethiopia, with whom he has been undertaking research since 2017. ...