This is a very exciting Special Issue titled “Making Good Relations in More than Human Worlds”, which makes up of three research articles and two essays. Alongside the Special Issue, Vol 49 (2) also features an essay for the “The Anthropologist’s Toolkit” essay series and three book reviews. Summaries are provided below.
Editorial Note: On hope
The Editorial Note expresses solidarity with the students and university personnel in Serbia, who in recent months have taken courageous action calling for revolutionary change. The theme of hope continues in the contents of the Special Issue as outlined in the Editorial Note.
Articles:
- The Special Issue opens with an introductory article written by Paula Palanco Lopez (University of Oulu), Anna Krzywoszynska (University of Oulu)and Agnese Bankovska (University of Helsinki) to explore the contact zones arising between humans and more-than-humans.
- Caroline Gatt (University of Graz) takes the reader to the world of contemporary improvised music to present an ethnographic analysis of the care and attention developing on the scene
- Marzia Varutti (University of Geneva) proposes a toolkit to (re-)learn how to relate to the more than-human through conceptual, affective, and practice-based methods in order to explore the deeply damaged relationship between the human and more-than-human worlds.
Photo Essays:
- Galina Kallio (Helsinki University) invites the reader to hesitate in her essay that incorporates poetry, personal reflections and photos to guide the reader towards reflecting on animal death
- Barbara Turk Niskač (Tampere University) transports the reader to the southeastern part of Slovenia, where vast plots of land traditionally used for grazing and harvesting common bracken, or steljniki, are found. Here, the author employs walking ethnography to explore how she became aware of multispecies relationality in a particularly unique landscape.
Anthropologist’s Toolkit Essay Series:
- Is an essay compiled by me, Suvi Rautio (University of Helsinki/City University of New York), called ‘Through the Eyes of an Anthropologist’ I summarise an event I organised in December 2024 in Beijing with anthropologist He Beili. Following the theme of this issue, my essay implicitly expresses and contemplates how hope can be unearthed through the work of anthropologists.
Three Book Reviews
- Christianity, Politics, and the Afterlives of War in Uganda: There is Confusion by Henni Alava Francesca, reviewed by Harri Englund
- An Anthropology of Disappearance: Politics, Intimacies, and Alternative Ways of Knowing edited by Laura Huttunen and Perl Gerhild, reviewed by Timothy Anderson
- The Urban Poor and the Politics of Resettlement in Delhi by Sanjeev Routray, and reviewed by Jay Ke-Schutte
Before closing, we include an Errata in this issue, where we discuss an amendment to a Lectio Praecursoria by Ioana Țîștea published in 2024 in issue 48(3) of Suomen antropologi. The original publicationwas missing a reference to Bruno Lefort’s Finnish Research Council fellowship project, ‘Rethinking Co-existence from the Margins’.
As always, Suomen antropologi is a fully open access journal with no APCs or embargoes. Please enjoy reading the new Issue, cite it and share it across your networks!https://journal.fi/suomenantropologi/issue/view/12253
