Dr Andrew Sanchez

Biography

I am a social anthropologist whose research is about economy, power and working life. I also write about race and decolonisation. Prior to joining the University of Cambridge in 2016, I held teaching and research positions at the LSE, the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, and the University of Kent.

Research

I am a specialist on the anthropology of class, labour and corruption, and have conducted ethnographic fieldwork in urban India among industrial workers, trade unionists and entrepreneurs.

In 2016 I published my first book Criminal Capital: Violence, Corruption and Class in Industrial India,which considered how changing employment regimes relate to criminality in corporations and political institutions. Since then, my published work has explored a range of issues related to precarity, marginality, work, exchange, criminality, race, and anthropological theory.

I am currently writing a book about why it is in human nature to transform things, and how transformative efficacy is at the core of most major questions about political and economic life. I am also preparing a new collection about Mixed-Race thought and politics.

You can learn more about my anthropological work here: www.andrewsanchez.co.uk

Research interests

Capitalism; class; corruption; economy; India; industry organised crime; urban anthropology; race; work and labour.

Publications

Books

2019. Indeterminacy: Waste, Value and the Imagination. Berghahn (with Catherine Alexander)

2016. Criminal Capital: Violence, Corruption and Class in Industrial India, Routledge

Articles in peer-reviewed journals

2023. ‘Kill Your Ancestors: The Wars of Decolonization’ American Ethnologist 50(3):439-445

2020. ‘Transformation and the Satisfaction of Work’ Social Analysis 64(3): 68-94

2019. 'Understanding Labour Politics in an Age of Precarity' (with Sian Lazar) Dialectical Anthropology 43(1): 3-14

2019. 'Everyday Barricades: Bureaucracy and the Affect of Struggle in Trade Unions' (with Eeva Kesküla) Dialectical Anthropology 43(1): 109-125

2018.‘Canon Fire: Decolonizing the Curriculum’ The Cambridge Journal of Anthropology36 (2): 1-6

2017. ‘The Novelty of the Gift: A British Anthropologist & the Trends of Ethnography’ History and Anthropology 28 (5): 553-559

2016. ‘Profane Relations: The Irony of Offensive Jokes in India’ History and Anthropology 27 (3): 296-312

2014. ‘Anthropological and Historical Perspectives on India’s Working Classes’ (with Christian Strümpell) Modern Asian Studies 48(5): 1233-1241

2014. ‘Sons of Soil, Sons of Steel: Autochthony Descent and the Class Concept in Industrial India’ (with Christian Strümpell) Modern Asian Studies 48(5): 1276-1301

2012. ‘Deadwood and Paternalism: Rationalising Casual Labour in an Indian Company Town’ Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute18 (4): 808-827

2012. ‘Questioning Success: Dispossession and the Criminal Entrepreneur in Urban India’ Critique of Anthropology 32 (4): 435-457

2010. ‘Capitalism, Violence and The State: Crime, Corruption and Entrepreneurship in an Indian Company Town’ Journal of Legal Anthropology,1 (2):165-188

Edited Journal Issues

2019 . ’Labour Politics in an Age of Precarity’ (co-edited with Sian Lazar) Dialectical Anthropology 43(1)

2018. ‘Canon Fire: Decolonizing the Curriculum’ The Cambridge Journal of Anthropology 36(2)

2017. ‘The Indian Gift: a Critical Debate’. History and Anthropology 28 (5): 553-583

2014. ‘Class Matters: New Ethnographic Perspectives on the Politics of Indian Labour’ (co-edited with Christian Strümpell) Modern Asian Studies 48(5)

Chapters in Edited Collections

2024. ‘The Alchemy of the Circular Economy’. Circular Economies in an Unequal World: Waste, Renewal and the Effects of Global Circularity. O’Hare, P and Rams, D. (eds). Bloomsbury. pp. 215-224

2022. 'Technologies of Transformation' Routledge Handbook of The Anthropology of Labor. Gill, L and Kasmir, S (eds). Routledge. pp.361-371

2022. 'Mauss and the Gift' A Handbook of Economic Anthropology (3rd Edition). Carrier, JG. ed. Edward Elgar. pp. 35-44

2021. ‘The Colour of Anthropology’. Reading Against Racism: A Berghahn Collection

2019. ‘Systemic Criminality, Work and The Politics of Labour’. The Handbook of Organised Crime and Politics. Gilmour, S & Allum, F. (eds). Edward Elgar pp.374-388

2019. ‘The Values of Indeterminacy’ (with Catherine Alexander) Indeterminacy: Waste, Value and the Imagination. Alexander, C & Sanchez, A (eds.) Berghahn. pp. 1-30

2018. ‘The Fall and Rise of Class’. The Handbook of Political Anthropology. Wydra, H & Thomassen, B. (eds.) Edward Elgar. pp. 410-422

2018. ‘Division of Labour’ International Encyclopedia of Anthropology. Hilary Callan (ed.) Wiley-Blackwell

2018. ‘Piece Rates’ International Encyclopedia of Anthropology. Hilary Callan (ed.) Wiley-Blackwell

2018. ‘Relative Precarity: Decline, Hope and the Politics of Work’ Industrial Labor on the Margins of Capitalism: Precarity, Class and the Neoliberal Subject. Hann, C & Parry, JP. (eds) Berghahn pp. 218-240

2017. ‘Coercion and Corporate Power: Notes on Class Struggle in an Indian City’. The Corporation: A Critical, Multidisciplinary Handbook. Grietje Baars & Andre Spicer (eds.) Cambridge University Press. pp. 470-478

2015. ‘Criminal Entrepreneurship: A political economy of corruption and organised crime in India’ Routledge Handbook of Political Corruption. Paul Heywood (ed.) Routledge pp. 67-76