Anthropology has traditionally relied on a spatially localised society or culture as its object of study. This title features essays that demonstrate how over years this anthropological convention and its attendant assumptions about identity and cultural difference have undergone a series of important challenges.

"This collection presses forward the agenda of rethinking the anthropological keywords of 'culture' and 'society,' and towards an expansion of flexible yet rigorous ways of understanding the shifting terms of cultural tradition and political economy in the contemporary world."--Orin Starn, Duke University