Antropologia

Introduction. Beyond Collaboration: Toward a Politics of Alliances

2025-07-24T07:28:31+00:00

In the national and international anthropological scene, there seems to be a tacit consensus on the need to integrate and collaborate between the natural sciences and the social sciences within research projects and programs that respond concretely to the many contemporary social challenges. The aim of this special issue is to initiate a critical reflection on “interdisciplinarity” by going beyond the conventional rhetoric that celebrates the coming together of different scientific knowledges. In an endeavor to provide substance to the frequently empty notion of interdisciplinarity, this special issue has been established with the express intention of giving space to concrete experiences of anthropologists who perceive interdisciplinarity to be a catalyst for both intellectual innovation and political potential. These scholars, often operating beyond the confines of academia, have established collaborative networks with the aim of addressing the pressing challenges of the contemporary era. This issue thus prompts an exploration of the forms of knowledge that emerge beyond the established boundaries, within the enclaves where contaminated and rebellious alliances become possibilities for shared thought and action.

Unexpected allies : the conservation of amazonian stingless bees between biological sciences and cultural anthropology

2025-07-24T07:35:00+00:00

The accelerating loss of biodiversity is causing significant environmental damage and disproportionately affecting Indigenous and marginalized communities. This underscores the need for an interdisciplinary approach to conservation biology. Based on our collaborative work on a stingless bee conservation project in the Amazon, this article explores the role of cultural anthropology in interdisciplinary research, emphasizing its challenges and contributions. We examine the epistemological tensions and methodological obstacles that arise when integrating academic and Indigenous forms of knowledge, and reflect on the cultural and political dimensions of such initiatives, as well as the importance of effectively communicating research outcomes. This case study demonstrates how a critical reassessment of disciplinary boundaries can foster collaboration between diverse research paradigms, enabling the development of multi-epistemic knowledge systems. In doing so, it contributes not only to more effective conservation practices but also to a rethinking of the conceptual divisions between “nature” and “culture.”

Anthropology among plants, data, and scientists : in search of context in data-driven interdisciplinary collaboration

2025-07-24T07:38:43+00:00

In this article we explore interdisciplinarity as a context for doing ethnography both in terms of research techniques and theoretical elaboration. The article presents an account of research conducted by the authors within a team composed of plant pathologists and data scientists. The reflection fits within the theoretical framework of data-driven science, analyzing how anthropology, with its involvement in scientific collaboration processes, can contribute to making interdisciplinarity among contemporary sciences more incisive. We examine how reflection on the ethnographic context can help us understand the concrete role of anthropology in interdisciplinary projects. Context is the result of the intersubjective research process, which leads to diverse and sometimes unexpected forms of knowledge and social relations, as well as the coordination of the roles of co-researcher, observer and writer, along with related responsibilities, ethical dilemmas and challenges. Context reveals itself to be an intrinsically interdisciplinary and political project, involving both the knowledge produced and the research process itself.

About paperclips (and anthropology). Interstices, traces and interdisciplinary connections

2025-07-24T07:42:10+00:00

Through an object, the paperclips, the essay reflects on interdisciplinary connections that these human traces found in the interstices of the city have made possible, giving rise to a complex conceptual map. The use of an object like the paperclip, which unites and connects, is a useful pretext, but also an opportunity to talk about relationships, bodies, places, but also anthropology as an exercise in attention, freedom, and humanity in the making.

Knowledge and power in a “disputed forest” : participatory research in French Guiana Amazonian Park

2025-07-24T07:44:47+00:00

This paper analyses conflicts and alliances between knowledges in the largest national park in the European Union, the Guiana Amazonian Park, in a peculiar overseas indigenous context. On the one hand, the international objectives of nature protection are realised against the colonial backdrop of the expropriation of land from the Amerindian peoples. On the other hand, the valorisation of cultural heritages, of which anthropological knowledge is an important ally, clashes with decades of assimilationist policies, which have weakened the reproduction of local knowledge. In this “disputed forest” the common objective of preserving biological and cultural diversity is conditioned and affects the fragile local balances, generating conflicts, misunderstandings and unprecedented alliances.

Afterword. Anthropology and the interdisciplinary research

2025-07-24T07:47:35+00:00

Since the mid-nineteenth century, anthropology has focused on the “totality” of human experience in different societies, covering areas such as technology, thought, values and rituals. In doing so, anthropology has generated comparisons and exchanges with other sector-specific disciplines that deal with particular areas of human experience. In more recent years, however, comparisons between different disciplines have sometimes given rise to opposition and misunderstandings over methods of data collection and analysis, as well as over quantitative versus qualitative approaches and whether to focus on normative or diverse values. The most successful approach has been “bi-disciplinary collaboration and exchange”, creating areas of dual expertise such as medical anthropology, legal anthropology, environmental anthropology and urban anthropology. International literature on the subject has also focused on the organisation of multidisciplinary university departments and international projects, which are now almost exclusively of this type. This has sometimes generated innovative and creative conceptions of a new “trans-disciplinarity”. The essays in this special issue mainly deal with cases of relationships between anthropological research and various natural sciences, ranging from eco-biology to medical and environmental sciences. They also carefully document the significant challenges in achieving equal and non-hierarchical exchanges between disciplines for mutual enrichment.

Reviews

2025-07-24T07:50:21+00:00

Lorenzo Alunni, 2025, Le cicatrici di Ulisse. Corpi e frontiere nel Mediterraneo, Milano, Meltemi (by Paolo Grassi)

S. Postar, N. E. Behzadi, N. N. Doering, 2024, Extraction/Exclusion: Beyond Binaries of Exclusion and Inclusion in Natural Resource Extraction, London, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers (by Gioia Rudilosso Consolo)

Agnès De Féo, 2024, The Niqab in France: Between Piety and Subversion, New York, Fordham University Press (by Stefania Spyropoulou)

Chiara Cacciotti, 2024, Qui è tutto abitato. L’occupazione romana di Santa Croce/ Spin Time Labs come esperienza abitativa liminale, Verona, Ombre Corte (by Benedetta Tarsi)

The Authors

2025-07-24T07:53:21+00:00

The Authors