Global anthropology and the art of the middle range

Abstract

Over the past forty years, Aihwa Ong has invented a remarkable collection of powerful concepts, delivered in compact and vivid terms, that have become essential instruments of a global anthropology. These concepts—which she crafted in response to anthropology’s engagement with globalization beginning in the late 1970s—might be understood as products of work in the “middle range.” They remain powerful tools for a global anthropology of the present.