Dr. Marianne Maeckelbergh

Marianne Maeckelbergh’s research focuses on the anthropology of globalization, democracy and social movements. Specifically on the decision-making practices within the alterglobalization movement and the implications these practices have for contemporary assumptions about democracy and democratic values. Her research examines prefiguration as a strategic movement practice and raises questions about what happens to democratic values when they are practiced on a global scale through network structures instead of the nation-state. Marianne Maeckelbergh’s other research interests include anthropological approaches to ‘identity’, ‘personhood’ and ‘agency’ in a context of global flows; urban social movements in India, specifically how caste, class, language and especially transnational exchanges affect the way politics is practiced. Marianne’s approach is a political one based on an engaged anthropology that explores the methodological challenges posed by the need for a more ‘global’ ethnography in both the anthropology of social movements and the anthropology of development.