Man walks across the unrecognized border between Georgia and Abkhazia. Photo by R. Bryant.
I am a cultural anthropologist who studies forced migration,
borders, and unrecognized states. Through those subjects,
I investigate the state and sovereignty, with a special focus
on temporality, historicities, and the future.
borders, and unrecognized states. Through those subjects,
I investigate the state and sovereignty, with a special focus
on temporality, historicities, and the future.
NEW BOOKS
|
"In a world in which such ambivalent, state-like entities seem to have proliferated, the case of northern Cyprus offers many useful lessons for understanding what statehood actually does—lessons that the authors of this insightful and original book artfully extract from a wonderful array of personal experience, documentary evidence, and ethnographic observation."—Michael Herzfeld, Harvard University
"Sovereignty Suspended is an absolute joy to read and easily one of the best books written on de facto states. Rebecca Bryant and Mete Hatay use their extensive knowledge and years of research on the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus to provide an extremely rich and original analysis of the processes of de facto state-building: how state-builders tried to make Turkish Cypriots perceptible and recognizable to the world, how this has resulted in a state that seems made up, and the resilient tactics that Turkish Cypriots have developed to go on with their lives. But Bryant and Hatay are not simply interested in state-building in de facto states, and their analysis allows them to reconceptualize sovereignty as capacity, as a form of institutionally realized agency. This is an important contribution which should make this impressive book of interest to anyone interested in state-building and sovereignty."—Nina Caspersen, University of York |
|
|
‘
"The poetics and politics of everyday temporality may never be more engaging than in Bryant and Knight's call to orient the social present in awareness of the not-yet-here, the not-yet-now. Addressing the future as an object of anthropological inquiry, the authors chorus the ‘time-reckoning of capitalism … at the heart of the modern', seeking traces of both spirit and heart across the global ethnoscape. The overall effect is of a future deexoticized. To my mind, this is a work for the ages, deftly informed by theory and felt through people compelled to mobilize prospects for rupture and continuity, as a matter of very real consequence." Debbora Battaglia - Mount Holyoke College, Massachusetts |
NEW COLLECTION
Orientations to the Future
Edited by Rebecca Bryant and Daniel M. Knight
A special collection of American Ethnologist with an introduction and articles by Rebecca Bryant and Daniel M. Knight, as well as contributions by Stef Jansen, Kristin Loftsdottir, Raluca Bianca Roman, Felix Ringel, Dace Dzenovska, Morten Nielsen, and Nigel Rapport.
SHORT ARTICLE
The Stubborn Stasis of the Status Quo
My contribution to our Orientations to the Future collection.
NEW ARTICLE
From Salvation to Struggle:
On Commemoration, Affect, and Agency in Cyprus
co-authored with Mete Hatay
This article explores the divisive commemoration of the battle of Erenköy, which has gained significance since the early 2000s in a resignifying of Turkish Cypriot history. Over time, the commemoration has shifted from a triumphalism symbolized in monuments to an act of mourning at the graves of the fallen. We show through this commemoration how actors have repurposed official narratives, deterritorializing them from the terrain of nationalist ideology and its countermemory and reterritorializing them in ways that look similar but are affectively quite different. We argue that this repurposing of the ritual produces an affect of agency among participants that is open-ended and future oriented.
On Commemoration, Affect, and Agency in Cyprus
co-authored with Mete Hatay
This article explores the divisive commemoration of the battle of Erenköy, which has gained significance since the early 2000s in a resignifying of Turkish Cypriot history. Over time, the commemoration has shifted from a triumphalism symbolized in monuments to an act of mourning at the graves of the fallen. We show through this commemoration how actors have repurposed official narratives, deterritorializing them from the terrain of nationalist ideology and its countermemory and reterritorializing them in ways that look similar but are affectively quite different. We argue that this repurposing of the ritual produces an affect of agency among participants that is open-ended and future oriented.