Overheating: the world since 1991

ABSTRACT

This special issue, which includes articles on Sierra Leone, Peru, Estonia, Hungary, Norway, the Philippines, Britain and Melanesia, presents some of the salient features of the accelerated post-1991 world. We emphasize the importance of comparison for theoretical development in anthropology and the relevance of contemporary history for anthropological research on globalization. We also demonstrate the importance of taking ethnography seriously in research on globalization. This article outlines the origins and central features of the post-Cold War world, showing the significance of shifting between global, transnational, national and local perspectives in order to understand the processes of change affecting communities in all parts of the world. This article also introduces the overheating approach to globalization [Eriksen, Thomas Hylland. 2016. Overheating: An Anthropology of Accelerated Change. London: Pluto], indicating ways in which new forms of connectedness and acceleration can shed new light on phenomena such as neo-liberalism, identity politics and climate change.

KEYWORDS:

• Globalization
• post-Cold War world
• scale
• overheating
• neo-liberalism

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the editor of History and Anthropology, an anonymous referee and the Overheating team for excellent criticisms of the first draft.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 This article draws on, and partly overlaps with, sections in Eriksen (2016).

Additional information

Funding

This article is based on research funded by the European Research Council Advanced Grant project “Overheating: The Three Crises of Globalisation” [grant number 295843].