Ursula Rao’s Department ‘Anthropology of Politics and Governance’ brings together scholars who use the tools and techniques of anthropology to research political arrangements, governance initiatives, and social movements that organize the contemporary world and animate future possibilities. This agenda responds to the sense that we live in critical times. Societies are challenged by new health scares; people fear that the changing climate could end human life as we know it; and many people experience war or totalitarian rule, or worry about the spread of extremism and violence. Reactions to these challenges are multiple, ranging from spectacular action and noisy protest to attempts to re-establish control by means of new techniques and technologies of rule. She and her team study how such concerns emerge within specific lifeworlds, and how people’s situated action addresses globally relevant problems and contributes to the repositioning of humans in our times. They focus their attention on the emblematic topics of Ecological Transformations and Well-being, and we address the crucial role Techno-optimism plays in attempts to come to terms with and govern the complexities of (human) life.

Click here for the complete list of publications at the member’s home institution.

Online presentations:
‘A Conversation with Ursula Rao on Digital Identities, Biometric Technology and Bodies of Evidence’, Black Box by Algorithmic Governance Research Network with Tereza Østbø Kuldova, 25.06.2021.

‘The Right to Live at Times of Digital Surveillance’, Presentation at Behind Walls, Beyond Disciplines: Science, Technology, and the Carceral State of the Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program, University of Michigan, 11.06.2021.