At a time of rising crime and processes of criminalization around the world, it is especially important to consider what role crime plays for economic growth and state apparatuses. It has been argued that criminal networks represent an attack to neoliberal policies and to the capacity of the State to enact good governance practices (Vaishnav 2017). Yet, anthropological studies of crime have moved away from narrow definitions of criminal organizations as autonomous, internally cohesive, and bounded systems (Dua 2019; Michelutti et al. 2019; Schneider 2018; Ben-Yehoyada 2018). Scholarship has rather encouraged us to take seriously how crime works in coalition with rapid economic growth (Blok 1974; Schneider and Schneider 1976, 2003; Kaplan and Dubro 2012) and strengthening state institutions (Chubb 1982; Arlacchi 1986; Lupo 2009; Levien 2021). However, the question of how and through what kinds of relations crime, state and capital are being intertwined in worldly encounters is still open and deserves further attention. Without an adequate analysis of how informal, criminal networks actually permeate the formal realms of state and capital, we overlook the inner workings and exacerbating inequalities that continue to make these entwined coalitions possible. This panel addresses these issues by considering the social embeddedness of crime, to illuminate the complex relations among the actors who occupy the intertwined realms of crime, state and business. We build on anthropological studies of Italian mafia that have pointed to the relevance of the concept of intreccio (interweaving), literally a “plaited hairdo of tightly woven braids” (Schneider 2018: 16), to grasp the entanglements between crime and the social contexts in which it operates (Volkov 2002; Jaffe 2013; Civico 2015; Ben-Yehoyada 2018; Michelutti et al. 2019; Harris-White and Michelutti 2019;). The panel examines intreccio as made of multiple encounters, borrowing various terms of relatedness, to highlight relations of inequality, coercion, intimacy and ethical conduct. The panel’s papers address omertà, the so-called code of silence associated with the Sicilian Mafia, and the several strands that render it a powerful force in Sicily; the criminalization of various forms of brotherhood in Sicily; the capitalization of cattle rustling in the Indian state of Rajasthan; the ways in which intreccio creates new zones of legality and illegality based on Muslim criminalization in India; and the relationships between drug merchants, municipal and regional governments, and the military on either side of the Nicaragua/Honduras border. Taken together, the panelists’ projects remind us how the entanglements of crime, capitalism and the state continue to matter while also begging new questions and raising new issues to explore. How do terms of relatedness and intimacy transform and serve as forms of cohesion, allegiance, and subjugation in the intreccio? What forms of criminalization are actively produced and do they obfuscate, displace, and disguise? And what are the strategies that people enact to shape the intreccio in unpredictable ways? The panel offers a comparative perspective of intreccio in different ethnographic contexts on a global scale, and ultimately ask: what are the implications of intreccio for the forms the political can take?

Instituted relatedness and the variety of its criminalization

Omerta

Woven Strands: Crime, Capitalism and the State

technical paper

Truth and Responsibility
“Truth and Responsibility” is a call to reimagine anthropology to meet the demands of the present moment. The imperative to bear witness, take action, and be held accountable to the truths we write and circulate invites us to reflect on our responsibility in reckoning with disciplinary histories, harms, and possibilities. To whom are we giving evidence and toward what ends? For whom are we writing? To whom are we accountable, and in what ways? We are thrilled to announce the theme of the 2021 AAA Annual Meeting to be held in Baltimore, MD: Truth and Responsibility.

Many consider anthropology to be a holistic social science dedicated to cross-cultural understanding as a way to reduce bigotry and more fully comprehend “what it means to be human.” Others push against this readily circulated origin story, arguing that “human” remains a highly contested, political category—evident as the presumed set of rights and protections associated with the “human” continue to be stripped away violently in the communities in which some of us live and work. Which violent histories and epistemologies must anthropologists take responsibility for in telling truth(s) about the discipline’s development? How do the dual histories of settler colonialism and slavery continue to influence anthropological thought and practices? In these political times, how can anthropologists throughout the globe work to secure a capacious, progressive vision of the human? How might movements for anti-racism, decoloniality, queer liberation, and healing such as #BlackLivesMatter, #ProtectMaunaKea, and #MeToo push a future anthropology out of the ashes of the anthropological past? Finally, what are the limits and possibilities of the anthropological imagination?

Across subfields, we find truths in patterns of human behavior, language, evolution, and cultural worlds. Industry-positioned anthropologists do this by extending the boundaries of the discipline not as an administrative solution to job shortages but as a source of intervention and knowledge production. Increasingly, anthropologists who make use of the scientific method question how status and identity help to decide which facts come to represent truth. How might quantitative researchers use our methods to identify patterned truths, and what responsibility do we hold in challenging conventional wisdom about these patterns? What responsibility do we have to both our colleagues and larger publics, to push toward increased transparency and ethical grounding in our data collection, analysis, and presentation?

Pedagogy is a key medium for the communication of anthropological truths. Which (and whose) truths are foregrounded in our curricula? What are the possibilities for a liberatory pedagogy in a precarious, “post-truth” era? Conferences, museums, organizing spaces, and classrooms are sites where pedagogy and various forms of communication can help us interrogate the performativity of truth. How might anthropologists conceive of truth performances? Might visual, aural, and choreographic performances during AAA sessions offer anthropologists alternative genres for truth-telling and truth-making that provoke discussions about responsibility?

In accordance with the urgency of the year’s theme, the questions posed in this call for papers do not have easy answers. The hope is that those who submit proposals will take up these questions and engage in collective thinking and imagining about the truths we hold, the truths we challenge, and the responsibilities we bear in co-creating a free and more equitable world. All panel proposals should have a statement about how the panel has incorporated the goals of equity, diversity, and inclusion, and/or analysis of power.

Executive Session proposals have already been selected and speak directly to the theme “Truth and Responsibility.” To practice the critical reflexivity this call for papers invites, we asked that Executive Session submissions explicitly address the diversity of session participants, such as organizational/institutional affiliation, career stage, race, ethnicity, disability, sexuality, class, religion, national identity, and gender. Proposals for Executive Sessions that demonstrated a commitment to equity and inclusion and/or a clear analysis of power (i.e. anti-imperialist, anti-white supremacist, decolonial, anti-ableist, feminist, anti-transphobic, anti-xenophobic, etc) were given priority. We are excited to be in conversation with residents of the Baltimore region and look forward to the discussions, performances, and actions generated by the dynamic group of anthropologists attending the 2021 AAA Annual Meeting.

AAA Annual Meeting 2021

“Truth and Responsibility” is a call to reimagine anthropology to meet the demands of the present moment. The imperative to bear witness, take action, and be held accountable to the truths we write and circulate invites us to reflect on our responsibility in reckoning with disciplinary histories, harms, and possibilities. To whom are we giving evidence and toward what ends? For whom are we writing? To whom are we accountable, and in what ways? We are thrilled to announce the theme of the 2021 AAA Annual Meeting to be held in Baltimore, MD: Truth and Responsibility.

Naor Ben-Yehoyada

2

Presentations

Instituted relatedness and the variety of its criminalization

Omerta