Empirical Futures

Since the 1950s, anthropologist Sidney W. Mintz has been at the forefront of efforts to integrate the disciplines of anthropology and history. Author ofSweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern Historyand other groundbreaking works, he was one of the first scholars to anticipate "globalization studies." Yet a strong tradition of epistemologically sophisticated and theoretically informed empiricism of the sort advanced by Mintz has yet to become a cornerstone of contemporary anthropological scholarship. This collection of essays by leading anthropologists and historians serves as an intervention that rests on Mintz’s rigorously historicist ethnographic work, which has long predicted the methodological crisis in anthropology today. Contributors to this volume build on Mintzean interdisciplinarity to provide productive ways to theorize the everyday life of local groups and communities, nation-states, and regions and the interconnections among them. Consisting of theoretical and case studies of Latin America, North America, the Caribbean, and Papua New Guinea,Empirical Futuresdemonstrates how a Mintzean approach advances the study of culture, power, and identity. The contributors are George Baca, Frederick Cooper, Virginia R. Dominguez, Frederick Errington, Deborah Gewertz, Juan Giusti-Cordero, Aisha Khan, Samuel Martínez, Stephan Palmié, Jane Schneider, and Rebecca J. Scott. The editors are George Baca, Aisha Khan, and Stephan Palmié. Contributors: George Baca, Goucher College Frederick Cooper, New York University Virginia R. Dominguez, University of Illinois Frederick Errington, Trinity College Deborah Gewertz, Amherst College Juan Giusti-Cordero, University of Puerto Rico at Rio Piedras Aisha Khan, New York University Samuel Martínez, University of Connecticut Stephan Palmie, University of Chicago Jane Schneider, City University of New York Graduate Center Rebecca J. Scott, University of Michigan

George Baca is assistant Professor of anthropology at Goucher College. Aisha Khan is associate professor of anthropology at New York University. Stephan Palmi is associate professor of anthropology at the University of Chicago.