Smoke and Anthropology (Guest Editors: Simone Dennis and Yasmine Musharbash)

This edited volume contemplates a variety of anthropological approaches to smoke and how analyses of smoke – as object, material, phenomenon, practice, or political fact – might contribute to anthropological knowledge. It considers these questions in and through the themes cross-cutting this collection, including: the sensuous aspects of smoke (especially in the olfactory, visual and haptic relations it occasions, entails and denies); the politics of smoke (in particular regard to climate change, public health, and Indigenous knowledge); smoke’s temporal dimensions (from the human mastery of fire via industrial chimneys to vaping e-cigarettes); and its ritual functions (encapsulating transition par excellence, curing ills, placating spirits, and marking time).