About
International Political Anthropology
IPA Mission
A main aim of International Political Anthropology journal is to give a voice to conceptual and methodological creativity, linking the study of politics to perspectives and tools drawn from disciplines or subject areas that were long considered irrelevant to the study of politics proper.
International Political Anthropology is a non-commercial peer-reviewed academic journal published twice a year. The founding editors Agnes Horvath, Harald Wydra, and Bjorn Thomassen, gathered in Florence in 2007 to establish this journal for promoting interaction between international relations scholars and disciplines such as Anthropology, Sociology, and Philosophy.
IPA Affiliation
International Political Anthropology journal is hosted and published by
The International Political Anthropology Association,
Department of Political and Social Sciences (DiSPeS),
Università degli Studi di Trieste,
Piazzale Europa 1 - 34127,
Trieste, Italy
Click here to learn more about the International Political Anthropology Association (IPAA).
Founding Editors' Welcome:
Agnes Horvath, Bjørn Thomassen & Harald Wydra
The Journal International Political Anthropology provides a new and much needed forum for interdisciplinary and comparative scholarship, addressing problematics and concerns of the contemporary political scene through the prism of anthropologically based approaches.
A main aim of the Journal is to give a voice to conceptual and methodological creativity, linking the study of politics to perspectives and tools drawn from disciplines or subject areas that were long considered irrelevant to the study of politics proper.
The Journal is bi-annual. At intervals, the Journal will publish a Symposium, gathering articles and commentaries relating to a specific theme that has been dealt with at a preceding workshop. Symposia themes and workshops will be announced at the IPA website.
Agnes Horvath is a sociologist and political scientist with an interest in an anthropological understanding of modern society. She has a PhD in social and political sciences from the European University Institute in Florence (2000). She was affiliated visiting scholar at Cambridge University (2011-14), and now is a Visiting Research Fellow at University College, Cork. She is co-founder and chief editor of International Political Anthropology. Her recent books include Liminal Politics in the New Age of Disease: Technocratic Mimetism (London: Routledge, 2022), Modernism and Charisma (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2013), Breaking Boundaries: Varieties of Liminality (Oxford, Berghahn, 2015, co-editor), Walking into the Void: A Historical Sociology and Political Anthropology of Walking (with Arpad Szakolczai, Routledge, 2018), Divinization and Technology: The Political Anthropology of Subversion (Routledge, 2019, co-editor), and Walling, Boundaries and Liminality: A Political Anthropology of Transformations (Routledge, 2019, co-editor).
Harald Wydra is a university lecturer in politics at the University of Cambridge and a fellow of St Catharine's College. His general research interests include political anthropology, symbolic politics, politics of memory, and methodological approaches to the understanding of uncertainty in politics. He is a founding editor of the academic journal International Political Anthropology. Wydra is the author of the 2007 book Communism and the Emergence of Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). He is editor with Ágnes Horváth and Bjørn Thomassen for the Breaking Boundaries: Varieties of Liminality (New York: Berghahn, 2015)
Bjørn Thomassen holds a Doctoral Degree (Ph.D.) in Political and Social Science at the European University Institute, Department of Political and Social Sciences, Florence; BA and MA Degrees in Anthropology, Institute of Anthropology, Department of Political and Social Science, University of Copenhagen. He has been chair of the Department of International Relations since 2008. Before coming to AUR he taught at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, and at the University College of Cork, Ireland.
CHIEF EDITORS
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MARIUS ION BENȚA
MARIUS ION BENȚA RECEIVED HIS PHD IN 2014 FROM UNIVERSITY COLLEGE CORK, IRELAND, WITH A THESIS ON ALFRED SCHUTZ'S SOCIOLOGY OF 'MULTIPLE REALITIES.' HIS WORK FOCUSES ON SUCH TOPICS AS THE POLITICAL ANTHROPOLOGY OF TECHNOLOGY AND MEDIA, PHENOMENOLOGY, MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE, RELIGION, AND NATIONALISM. HIS RECENT PUBLICATIONS INCLUDE WALLING, BOUNDARIES AND LIMINALITY: A POLITICAL ANTHROPOLOGY OF TRANSFORMATIONS (A COLLECTIVE VOLUME CO-EDITED WITH AGNES HORVATH AND JOAN DAVISON, ROUTLEDGE 2018), EXPERIENCING MULTIPLE REALITIES: ALFRED SCHUTZ’S SOCIOLOGY OF THE FINITE PROVINCES OF MEANING (A RESEARCH MONOGRAPH, ROUTLEDGE 2018), OR "FLUID IDENTITY, FLUID CITIZENSHIP: THE PROBLEM OF ETHNICITY IN POST-COMMUNIST ROMANIA", IN: NATIONALISM AND ETHNIC POLITICS, 23/2017. HE WORKS IN CLUJ, ROMANIA, AS RESEARCH FELLOW IN SOCIOLOGY AT GEORGE BARIȚIU INSTITUTE AND ASSOCIATE LECTURER AT BABEȘ-BOLYAI UNIVERSITY.
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PAUL O’CONNOR
PAUL O’CONNOR IS ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF SOCIOLOGY AT UNITED ARAB EMIRATES UNIVERSITY IN ABU DHABI, HAVING PREVIOUSLY COMPLETED HIS PHD AT UNIVERSITY COLLEGE CORK, IRELAND. HIS RESEARCH AND WRITING ARE CENTRED ON THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF HOME AND COMMUNITY, THE DYNAMICS OF MODERNITY AND GLOBALISATION, THE INTERSECTION BETWEEN SOCIETY AND ITS PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT, THE EMERGENCE AND DISINTEGRATION OF STRUCTURES OF MEANING, AND THE MEDIATISATION AND VIRTUALISATION OF CONTEMPORARY SOCIAL LIFE. HIS WORK HAS BEEN PUBLISHED IN JOURNALS INCLUDING MEMORY STUDIES, MOBILITIES, INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ANTHROPOLOGY, IRISH JOURNAL OF ANTHROPOLOGY, AND THE DARK MOUNTAIN ANTHOLOGY. HOME: THE FOUNDATIONS OF BELONGING (ROUTLEDGE, 2018) EXAMINES THE IDEA OF HOME FROM AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE AS A CENTRE AROUND WHICH WE ORGANISE BOTH EVERYDAY ROUTINES AND EXPERIENCES, ENDOWING THE WORLD WITH MEANING AND ORDER. OTHER PUBLISHED VOLUMES INCLUDE THE TECHNOLOGISATION OF THE SOCIAL: A POLITICAL ANTHROPOLOGY OF THE DIGITAL MACHINE (ROUTLEDGE, 2022: CO-EDITED WITH MARIUS BENTA) AND LIMINAL POLITICS IN THE NEW AGE OF DISEASE: TECHNOCRATIC MIMETICISM (ROUTLEDGE, 2023: CO-EDITED WITH AGNES HORVATH).
Associate
Editors
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Tom Boland
Tom Boland lectures in Sociology at Waterford Institute of Technology. His core interests are in social theory, historical sociology and the sociology of critique. Recent articles have appeared in journals of sociology, history, anthropology and philosophy. His monograph Critique as a Modern Social Phenomenon was published in 2013 by Mellen Press. With Ray Griffin he is author of The Sociology of Unemployment (Manchester University Press, 2015).
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Daniel Gati
Daniel Gati is Associate Editor of the International Political Anthropology
Journal. Has a BA in Art History from the University of Florence, a First
Class Honours HDip in Sociology from University College Cork and an
MSc in Sociology from the University of Amsterdam. Daniel has worked for
over a decade for the IPA (International Political Anthropology), organising
conferences such as the first and second International Beauty Conference and
the IPASS summer schools. His main areas of interests are the nature of political
power, mimesis, and technology. -
Camil Roman
Camil Francisc Roman (PhD University of Cambridge, 2017) is currently Lecturer in Political Science at John Cabot University and LUMSA University (Rome). He is interested in reflexive and interpretative approaches to the human sciences, with an emphasis on anthropologically and historically oriented theory. Among his areas of research are modern democracy and revolutions, modernity and secularization, and the social foundations and implications of political power. At the moment he is completing the research monograph The French Revolution as a Liminal Process: Understanding the Political Schismogenesis of Modernity (Routledge, forthcoming). His latest publications include Divinization and Technology. The Political Anthropology of Subversion (co-editor; Routledge 2019), ‘The French Revolution and the Craft of the Liminal Void: From the Sanctity of Power to the Political Power of the Limitless Sacred’ (Historical Sociology 2018), ‘The Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars in the Prussian political Imaginary: A Politico-Anthropological Genealogy of the “Special” German–French Relations’ (Journal of International Relations and Development 2018), and “Liminality, the Execution of Louis XVI, and the Rise of Terror during the French Revolution” in Breaking Boundaries: Varieties of Liminality (Berghahn 2015).
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John O'Brien
John O’Brien is a Lecturer in Sociology in the Department of Applied Arts, School of Humanities, Waterford Institute of Technology. John holds a BSocSci and MSocSci from University College Dublin. In 2011 he graduated with a PhD from the Department of Sociology, University College Cork. His most recent publication is 'States of Intoxication: The Place of Alcohol in Civilization'. John has lectured in Sociology in WIT since 2008. Prior to this he was a tutor in sociology in Dublin City University, University College Cork and University College Dublin. He is Co-Director of the Centre for the Study of the Moral Foundations of Economy and Society, a Member of the Sociological Association of Ireland, the British Sociological Association and the Drinking Studies Network. He has worked with the office of the President of Ireland on the Ethics Initiative, in collaboration with the Centre for the Study of the Moral Foundations of Economy and Society. John’s research interests include alcohol and other psychoactive substances, consumption, sociological theory, classical philosophy, Irish society, memory and commemoration. He has published two books and numerous journal papers on these topics. He currently supervises four PhD students and has hosted/delivered at several conferences and summer schools.
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Janos Mark Szakolczai
Janos Mark Szakolczai is a PhD candidate in University College Cork. His field of interest includes criminology, anthropology and sociology. Janos now teaches Criminolgy at the University of Glasgow.
Communication
Director
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Giuliana Parotto
GIULIANA PAROTTO IS PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY AT THE DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCES (DISPES), UNIVERSITÀ DEGLI STUDI DI TRIESTE (TRIESTE, ITALY). SHE IS THE AUTHOR OF SEVERAL BOOKS ON POLITICAL THEORY AND POLITICAL THEOLOGY, SUCH AS: TEORIA POLITICA. UN'INTRODUZIONE CONDIVIDI (FRANCO ANGELI, 2020); OLTRE IL CORPO DEL LEADER. CORPO E POLITICA NELLA SOCIETÀ POST-SECOLARE (IL NUOVO MELANGOLO, 2016); SACRA OFFICINA: LA SIMBOLICA RELIGIOSA DI SILVIO BERLUSCONI (FRANCO ANGELI, 2007); OLTRE IL CORPO DEL LEADER: CORPO E POLITICA NELLA SOCIETÀ POST-SECOLARE (IL MELANGOLO, 2016) LA POLITICA TRA STORIA ED ESCATOLOGIA: UN ITINERARIO DI HANS URS VON BALTHASAR (FRANCO ANGELI, 2000); IUSTUS ORDO: SECOLARIZZAZIONE DELLA RAGIONE E SACRALIZZAZIONE DEL PRINCIPE NELLA SECONDA SCOLASTICA (GUIDA EDITORI, 1993); SHE IS CO-EDITOR (WITH UMBERTO LODOVICI) OF ERIC VOEGELIN: VANGELO E CULTURA (MORCELLIANA, 2022) AND HAS PUBLISHED NUMEROUS ARTICLES IN ACADEMIC JOURNALS.
International Political Anthropology Summer School (IPASS)
