About Crits

The Anthropology of Crises and Contemporary Transformations (CRITS) research group is comprised of researchers from the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Barcelona, the University of Lleida, and the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC). It is a consolidated research group funded by the Agency for Management of University and Research Grants (AGAUR).

Its objective is to promote ethnographies that enable the identification, analysis, and interpretation of the multiple processes of change experienced by contemporary societies embedded in the dynamics of capitalist transformation. CRITS seeks to establish a new focus of theoretical inquiry, rooted mainly in the tradition of political economy in Anthropology, based on empirical experiences related to the crises and transformation processes affecting contemporary societies. The emphasis here lies in a defining aspect of contemporary historical experience: the overlapping of various crises (environmental, economic-financial, health, political, migratory, food and supply, housing, care…), a phenomenon that characterizes the present moment.

“Crisis” is thus conceptualized as an emic concept relating to social transformation processes that mark an acceleration of historical change, which in turn gives rise to new forms of contestation and protest by different social groups, while also revealing power relations, normative mechanisms, and rights violations that remain more concealed when circumstances are less volatile.

History

The Anthropology of Crises and Contemporary Transformations (CRITS) research group is the result of integrating researchers from two previous groups (Observatori de l’Alimentació –ODELA– and the Grupo de Investigación en Antropología del Patrimonio –GRAP) along with five more researchers [Mikel Aramburu, Sílvia Bofill, Raúl Márquez, Diana Mata, Irene Sabaté] from the Grup d’Estudis sobre Reciprocitat (GER).

The creation of CRITS arises from the need to establish a group with a broader thematic focus, capable of combining efforts to generate research activities with greater scope, based on a critique of the thematic fragmentation and excessive specialization of the anthropological discipline today. The breadth of the group aims to allow its members to seek synergies between thematic areas that are usually addressed separately, but which follow systemic logics inherent to the dynamics of contemporary capitalism, and that social actors experience as closely intertwined aspects of their reality. In this context, the group aims to promote an inter-ethnographic exchange and dialogue that leads to fruitful comparisons, in line with the holistic and comparative tradition of Social Anthropology.