Introduction

The Society for the Anthropology of Work (SAW), in collaboration with the Committee for the Anthropology of Science, Technology, and Computing (CASTAC), awarded the 2021 Diana Forsythe Prize to Alex Blanchette for Porkopolis: American Animality, Standardized Life, and the Factory Farm. This book, published by Duke University Press in 2020, was recognized by the prize jury as a book about “struggles to achieve dignity and worth amidst the hostile infrastructures of American industrial agriculture.”

Recognizing the important role that early-career researchers play in the life of our section and the future of our field, a diverse group of graduate students have been invited by SAW to read and offer brief responses to Blanchette’s award-winning book. This book forum includes responses by Kate Elliot (Simon Fraser University), Pooja Nayak (University of Pennsylvania), Atmaezer H. Simanjuntak (Northwestern University) and Ramsha Usman (University of California, Santa Barbara), as well as a generous reply by Blanchette.

We hope that these forums will extend the reach of scholarship that has been recognized by SAW, as well as contribute to the intellectual exchange across career stages that has long been a hallmark of the section.

Editor Biography

Lawrence Ramirez is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Riverside, researching the anthropology of tourism, dance, and museum anthropology. He is a student representative to the board of the Society for the Anthropology of Work.