About

Julia Elyachar is an author, anthropologist, and political economist with a multidisciplinary background that includes anthropology, economics, history of political and economic thought, social theory, Middle Eastern Studies, and Arabic language. She holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University in Anthropology and Middle Eastern Studies, an M.A. in Anthropology from Harvard, and a B.A. in Economics from Barnard College, Columbia University. Elyachar is an associate professor of anthropology at Princeton University and also serves as an associate professor at the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies. Her academic career includes positions at UC Irvine, where she was an Associate Professor of Anthropology and Economics and Director of the Center for Global Peace and Conflict Studies, as well as teaching and research roles at NYU and the Slovene Academy of Sciences and Arts. Her teaching and research focus on issues of debt, economic dependency, and the entanglement of historical and contemporary economic issues, especially in the Middle East. Elyachar's ethnographic work is centered in Egypt, where she conducted four and a half years of research in the 1990s, and she continues to engage with the region through shorter research periods. Her work draws on her regional expertise, her family legacy from Palestine, and her experience working at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Elyachar's first book, 'Markets of Dispossession,' was awarded the American Ethnological Society's first book prize and has been widely reviewed and translated. Her upcoming book, 'On the Semi-Civilized,' explores coloniality, finance, and embodied sovereignty in Cairo. She is also a co-editor of 'Thinking Infrastructures' and has published numerous articles in leading journals. Her research and writing open up areas for theoretical inquiry and conceptual innovation in anthropology and social sciences, with a focus on markets, finance, and global infrastructures in the Middle East.

Research topics

• Sociology
• Political Science
• Law
• Social Science
• Geography
• Economy
• History
• Finance
• Ecology
• Anthropology
• Business
• Political economy
• Communication
• Archaeology
• Economics

Selected publications

• Public Wealth, Public Enemies, and the Right to Existence

  Current Anthropology · 2025-07-02 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  In this article, I bring together ethnographic material from three cities in which I conducted ethnography between 2011 and 2021: Split (Croatia), Cairo (Egypt), and Ljubljana (Slovenia). The dominant analytic language in anthropology in the past 30 years to discuss national wealth, social property, and their dissolution has been the analytic of neoliberalism, in which “public goods” of the state are privatized to become part of the ever-expanding free market. But no one I met in those cities used such language to talk about what was going on. People did talk a great deal about wealth, theft, and the affronts to dignity all this entailed. In a time of generalized and dispersed global revolt, in which demands for dignity are as common as protests about any particular economic policy, it is urgent for anthropologists to find better analytic tools to make sense of what is going on. Here, I analyze my ethnographic findings with help from the writings of James Maitland (1759–1839), the eighth Earl of Lauderdale. Lauderdale was a vigorous opponent of Adam Smith, author of The Wealth of Nations, and of pervasive practices of “private avarice” among those who should be seen as “public enemies.” His critique of the “scourge of accumulation” from a time before “endless growth” was established as an inevitable value around which social life must be organized has great resonance today.

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• <i>Remaindered Life</i> and <i>The Surrounds</i>

  Comparative Studies of South Asia Africa and the Middle East · 2024-05-01 · 1 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Julia Elyachar: To start with: why read your recent books, The Surrounds and Remaindered Life, together, and why for CSSAAME? On the journal's website, its goals are stated as seeking to “bring region and area studies into conversation with a rethinking of theory and the disciplines.”1 You are both theorists of the current global condition. And both of you are deeply immersed in the places where you live, think, and work, and from where you theorize. Of course, the books came out at almost the same time. But what beyond this moment is shared? Your books are not about “comparison” or about “comparative studies”—even in the critical way that CSSAAME invoked that phrase at the start. Neither of you is an area studies scholar. There is no “comparing” Africa and Asia in your work. Something else is at play.But maybe we can start here: When did you start talking to each other? What are your overlapping circles intellectually, and in your commitments to place?AbdouMaliq Simone: I discovered Neferti's work by accident. Her work doesn't fall within the usual rubric of work read by urbanists. I have insisted on being an urbanist, whatever that means, and on working in those worlds. Neferti's work was not readily accessible there. Her work adds something that people don't realize is missing there. People in the urban studies world often reach for something that they can't exactly get at. They point to it; they have a feel, a sense of it, but they can't quite get there. They don't have the poetic imagination or theoretical depth to account for that missing something and to put it into words.No one else manages to do that. Neferti has a whole strata of operations. She uses words that are simultaneously cognitive, affective, and tactile. Her vocabulary is rich and inventive; it gets at a politics of urban inhabitation about which language is often truncated and partial. I really appreciate how she writes outside of the usual universe of discourse that I normatively operate in.Neferti X. M. Tadiar: I discovered Maliq by accident as well. We read each other before we first exchanged emails. I was coleading a project on “subaltern urbanism” with my colleagues Anupama Rao and Saidiya Hartman. I'm not an urbanist, but I had a longstanding interest in the urban. You were an urbanist in a way that I had never before encountered.The first book of yours I read was City Life from Jakarta to Dakar. The scope of it! The acute span of its perspective was so marvelous to me. Who is this guy, I wondered? Why is he living in Jakarta? How does he know all of these other cities in Africa? So we exchanged emails and found we had been reading each other. Now with this last book of his, The Surrounds, I was mapping the contours of his vista, thinking about his poetics. That poetics resonates very much between us.You [Simone] have a poetic grasp, and I mean that obviously in the best sense of the word poetic. You bring into perception and into being things that are for me very much from the global South. I mean, I'm not in the global South now, but I'm immersed in it, and this perhaps has to do with place in the way you were asking about, Julia.I am deeply immersed in certain forms of inhabitation in the global South and have been since I was little. There, these forms of inhabitation can feel so very ordinary, as you say in your own book. You provide a new, heightened perception of this ordinariness through your notion of the surrounds. You give us another capacity for understanding what might happen, and what is happening there—what it is—rather than simply noting the existence of this form of life that is abundant everywhere. And which some kinds of urbanist work tend to ignore or describe in rather stale ways.So when you solicited what became my article, “City Everywhere,” and then the center of my book Remaindered Life, you made me more interested in the conversation that was happening in urban studies. Both of you, Maliq and Julia, with the work you each did engaging with the question of infrastructure (and both your works figure importantly in that essay), allowed me to see where I might enter into that field, even though I don't stay in it.One more thing on the theme of places. I never studied the Philippines as an object. I was trained in literature. Many of my colleagues went into area studies. I never did. I worked in comparative literature, and I chose to think about and through literature. Because the world that I was interested in was this rich universe, that became the place from which I was thinking. I was always in conversation with cultural matters, but not in conversation with other fields of study organized under area studies. To me that was all rather foreign.So I'm not an area studies person. And I see the same thing with Maliq's work. It's not area studies—even though it is deeply immersed in ethnography and the ethnographic and the of what on in your Your and your think you the as which is a as as are in And I I was your book in for I was the of of What I read in Maliq's work is a of global South the poetics of theory from the forms of inhabitation that we are both very though very what from those places to of you are not Surrounds the of what is And you provide a vocabulary for what is not it not to what you to give me to something from where I am and from where I am you about and the I about and And your of the of people in the of which I to as something out of as a of urban this of in your of the and how they and Both your of what on in these and the you might as an of global South theory out of the of those worlds. I can it and what you are about into the that I have a of the You are in which the urban for of a and on I feel so much that is between the we It's a theoretical that does not the language of the And where I think we or perhaps have a I for the question of comparative that Julia in urban studies has been a of in the last on a of comparative of that has been it to say that one has to urban theory through and of But I'm of the of the way in which things have to and in to that of comparative Neferti about it is not a of or a some urban are always and each it to know exactly what to is more a of the and it is that Neferti's about are they the through which things reach each other. Both the and are always in and then is a for how things each each other. And this is a comparative notion of to are not of not something that you into an and then in a by your own that in with each of and of the the way in which things can each other from a And the kinds of that are in to both and from each other perhaps always in a of with the of of these kinds of that I really as she about how these and the in which the of a of a of a both the of of inhabitation that question and the forms of as as an that is in to the of certain of life And the in which at the same they both the and the of own perhaps the of in but own that this is what Neferti is at in notion of living we have a where the of a the of a the of a the or a of to the of certain of of of life And the in which at the same they both the and the of own the same we see the of things so so kinds of of and that it to its own and for us to the each is the very thing that it, and so all the don't to of or The for are always me about of how things are in with each how they each how they operate within a of of that that we don't as an We have to do it all the time. But has to something else that into another thing we I The of within and beyond I mean, the some and in it is of what I say about the of everywhere. I think both of us that these beyond and within are and each other. that And how I think about this moment before moment when a has a certain not exactly but where other in the of and always the I think that Maliq and I have a I think I'm at things that You are but you are at things that There are that for and that out of the places where we are studies and the of are deeply of the Maliq is about and We see in his work, for the of in much of what I am is a of which an on than I am at the both and And I can see the and the of the in the Philippines as forms of and is not these we are at are on a global There is a of work to do to figure out what are to each which is a very project from Why do these things so for is your of in so Why do I know how people that between Why does it to me as why people do It's not a of places and kinds of can beyond with its imagination of the We are that are in the world that these this is something that to me this about how interested we are in which is what Maliq that we have to There are so forms of that we can think So of so that the There is not or about all the comparative project was an from with a of for the in the of theory from the And which to in as with which to the of those in the global What about the notion of this as a of the global that a of to a about to that phrase or not are not so of is a for the of an They can do But these are we can from about how to and on what we to bring into We don't to talking about I to We for we can to or these that we are talking of and with of the There are so But it is a To me it is a for the of an to some of but they are They do for not us to other to or not even but to point to and to what it is that we to bring into is how you read each work, and with each in this in the or in the of where we or one else that you to on about reading your books or reading each other as I I had more thinking and talking about I feel Maliq is talking about life on some much of the book on and and poetic of what the own book is to a certain project that I I I to That was to me. I it; for for I what I do think is happening with global of what I was to which is the way we can fall into the of a even when we forms of I to to that at of can to that of and you think something to the And I this very with the of but it in other places as I'm a of The of of to the same that they were is to all at when you are of the world that has to I feel I to that when we we can its capacity to to and out of what to it, out of as some of was not quite to me. I mean, is what the do is not But I that to stay with it, which is what I to with us to the and of that I think, Maliq That he with it, with in a way that and that is a very so and The very of is is not so other And so I'm to do both at that the forms of in this of its which on of and to the of the But the thinking about a of and for do see life in the same way that is everywhere. I to this through the through the and and the within my own I say this in to some of the of my work as the language of I to a with but people don't They not that I things with or with a that I the of in to with it, to so that I am not the and not that There are other that we language other than in the which a in the world by simply and how these in the world though my book is with something about how global I feel my account is almost it is at is from a place that and I when we at this world that is us is not a from the about how can There is so much and is not There is an way of that talking about something at all is the we know is to know about it and we don't really have to about it in the on that when they are are is why I say that the book is from the of from a perspective that is from a place of which I You I was in in the in now, do I have a of what went into the of that a certain of the of the working the to of than the of and more than the of or it is the very through which the working the of its existence that both the and of this very of And this is the I think Neferti to in to people have to life to what of and they to to into what Neferti the to is so in so at much of Jakarta and the way in which and are into a of of no you can a in a that not last But you have an in a in a way of that does not out a for other than work or being a on all of the you see the of of life that were the of the and which is and And you can't the same kinds of You can't to the and you have to this you this and by that much the people talking to are not even really the are the when you Neferti's notion of the as a of of Now the of is something that within And in those that and have to do really with the We no see the thing of the the urban of so cities have simply these are in they are often simply an for They are not to or and are not to in a they as in the which a of and an of but at the same that is out of the and that one always but perhaps not for how something the way it is is There is no no of what went on this to the in The to or where the have to enter into the of the to operations. through are they to the is it is to even read the of of what to of what in So made these Who How do you a of to that of of being the of are all the The is the of and of the each of or on a life of The as the of and is a of a that is but into about that the to all of those in of a more of forms of urban So much is being about this about how all the urban South people are more work through all that. at the in which those kinds of politics are It's a these are not the of of life within these kinds of The forms have a of a of that of people and being with each other that we not within And is a of the by the of the in which urban is in strata and that are very to of and which a of for I think this is where you can see the of Maliq's and maybe the of as being more It's your to the that on the best of the of the and so And what all this is which is something we of these about cities bring in in of urban and so and what to get But rather than the forms of and the of people to life on the you is really I say in the sense of you a of no to I think this can the of What is the of What is its What are the politics of I can that this is the question that people which with the question of a work is or these are all on a certain notion of What with those us to is to what we might think is Because we start with the of politics that you to from the to the and all of those things are then into a certain of politics of or to stay with to give it its to think with those is a project that us to other It's not the is us to the world that in and what the might Maliq always we see and other think this is another thing that that we an to what is to what or what can we get we work or we do the or we the or we see things the But what is that we to to that might I'm talking But I don't think even very It's what do we see of this world that we And how can we these things and have that a thing to an thing to things You say that quite a And I feel a project of when you say things is what they I think is (and me I'm a project of a for and in critical work about or the urban I feel Maliq is a that not so much it as that that gets in with critical one thing to about the in work. I see and between your on and and on has to do with the of the of in and of in a place the which was for the was and is on some but it of living that are rather than with a When I read I see or of of in a of I'm that some of my about the of of things to of the of of and of under you can see these that You can see of forms of life from other why is very as forms of a in the global you see as or as simply of then you not see the of that is by very forms of It's something that you about Julia, when you about the and how are that are or and so is to me. is a notion of living as of and the of or the of And you about this as well. of can of as to your your and your they don't always those are other of things within And for me a perspective us to That was very so You the something this that I on my I it in my work to to the very of urban I feel so with what you are of we see of of by a as urban But to to the that had been but for to And some of the people have been the from the urban of those had some some not those put in the kinds of People to these They in the same with the same kinds of and of things that were But was a of of a of It's almost as they what to even though what they to do a of what they had in a comparative is And this might in the that of people are to a in a way that both resonates with but into forms and There are and other of other of than those that has as a way of of as the of were with in the for had to have some of sense of and what that might is not always to the and how to bring it How to that as something other than a or as a of or a But rather as an a which does not the of a or but it with a of and of the of with and that at one moment but the of of beyond maybe is something that is You know that was a way in which this of capacity to in simultaneously did work in some I that of I the that are other of other of than the that has And it to me that people were with in the for to have some sense of the And what that might always so so what that might or how to it, or how to it or to bring it always so and can quite than it might have And this is the other I think, which both of books have in I'm to think that books are That was my when I first we read is your books together, I know Now I am understanding that much They are of both of to perception of the of the that people do things within those very of these things are within and beyond and for me they are in and in What we see are that are in or you to of and it is within those of to that we might of the of us are thinking about I think, for about the between and me this is the out how the and how the What are the They all work through so is not the To out the in which each other as the of That can very that can people as But it can very And you have to figure out the when one is as a that is and and when one as the of own of a life that is not is what is the that people with or other of the or forms of kinds of that are with a and an of that or what people do into some of even or it think about the in your the working the that working the of that are is a form of is to my thinking on for working those to do what you are which is the for some is not and and to me does not get at the of how people are own and what is on for or rather what is what they is of another that is out and the are I was in a of in a conversation with some about a they had been the in one of the of the And they made it don't in the We in the of the is an know that they have to do work to to into the They know they to that They know that the of the and of being and But they feel that they have no They that of being is a form of They know that the to for the that has to that have to we have the How do we operate in the of We feel that we have to there. what we can to things in a way that is not always and not always of me for but I of she for to I it to say something I the not for but to how to place in the or the or the of The is a way to and of that are not and which an I about at the of the book. in the sense to really it, even And I have in this other of this that is a form of a way of and to what you are kinds of life of forms of that I us to they can some of the forms of to say of and And these forms of or within and give people and kinds of and are as to the of the as is its stated and to one more about one of Maliq's book that I which is the of being That the ordinariness of what people are They are not they are not all of these in to being it is not the place from which they are to what we which is the politics of work where to as in of the and the we have made and are And that is not the place from which people are that they being I that you us to as a for other it really is in a at in urban to to and the work not so much on and inhabitation but the of and and that from that inhabitation through and to thinking of what the urban at within the of the with cities and inhabitation has always been to a of understanding of what cities a of that is not the forms of of or of but the of theoretical of what urban life is and That has been a and project of for some time. I to that project in my own as a way to think through the that I feel are I into about the work of so and one say this is my global but that quite though I have about the it has always been within a global and But in this I do beyond the or the or in ethnographic in the way Maliq I really from or about these but I have from And in the the of has to so of the world and are in all of the of all of these global they are they are in the of global of work. is in all of these places of and in forms of of of own people and own I see as of of me very not to from the of these kinds of book is not about a people or a is not about a that we to give a There is no to give to or to the same the I from theorists and in the Philippines are always in conversation with global South by which I mean, is not to the but is a way we are in each and and so are I think with it is they have me how to see the world and how to and to feel it, and are so things in the world that I work with that are to the they are talking about and So not theoretical works have some of comparative for a world that is are my my of some of these The often to what is in The of the had no or that was no or that they out a I with form of has always with is a I am the of the of of in the or of the They have something to say to I to have more of that am with you, we can with and to each other I to in the That we are in with in how we I don't think that this is something that I but something that And I to do is at the at the of and of The Life within and beyond of in an and the City X. M. is of and studies at and of Remaindered Life, and the of and and for the

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• Relational finance: Ottoman debt, financialization, and the problem of the semi-civilized

  Journal of Cultural Economy · 2023 · 14 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Sociology
  • Political Science
  • Finance

  How might archival fragments of an economic anthropologist of post-Ottoman Egypt speak to current debates about finance and financialization? Literature in critical financial studies often reads as if financialization began in 1970 and moves outward from the global North like a mobile frontier remaking the world in its image. But if there is anything like a ‘frontier of finance,' it moved from East to West long before the Industrial Revolution. Through readings of ‘ethnographers of finance’ in archives of the Ottoman Public Debt Administration, I disrupt common views of finance as an intrinsic agent of extraction, colonialism, and imperialism to show how finance entails multiple and overlapping processes that make debt valuable. From such a perspective, attention to finance and revaluation in the late Ottoman Empire can invigorate debates about financialization more broadly, including in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis in the United States.

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• Anthropology of proprioception: Endurance and collectivity on unstable grounds in postrevolutionary Cairo

  American Anthropologist · 2022 · 29 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Sociology
  • Sociology
  • Anthropology

  Abstract In this article, I turn from the anthropology of resistance to an anthropology of proprioception. I draw on the concept of proprioception—conscious awareness of the body in space—to provide conceptual language for rethinking collective agency in the long aftermath of mass revolt. I bring proprioception together with the concept of barzakh , or estuary, as interpreted by Ibn ‘Arabi (1165–1240) and Abou El Fetouh (2015), to consider different groundings of collective movement. I do so, for one thing, because of a lingering individualism of the body in formulations of resistance and because of the urgency of thinking collectivity together with ground in times of climate emergency. I draw from debates about collectivity and ground in Egypt, the Middle East, and the broader region of the former Ottoman Empire to make my arguments about why this matters for anthropology. I think this through with ethnographic material from Cairo over the span of 1996–2019, focusing less on conversation and interaction in a particular location than on interactions in movement, across and down the street, and among interlocutors in fields of anthropology, physiology, and social theory in nineteenth‐century Great Britain, the United States, and Egypt.

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• Acknowledgments

  Stanford University Press eBooks · 2022

  • Geography

  This book owes its existence to a vast network of generous interlocutors, mentors, colleagues, friends, and co-conspirators.First among these is the community I have been working with in Peru over repeat visits since 2008, a time when they became all of these things.Gerardo Huaracha and Luisa Cutipa have been enthusiastic, encouraging hosts who quickly became shadow academic advisers.Their adult children, Sabino, Guzmán, María, Nestor, Maruja, and Alan, and their extended family made me feel welcome in Yanque.So did Yeny Huanaco Huerta, Dante Bayona, and their children, Renzo and Leandro, who became fast friends as we ate meals together almost every day when I lived in Yanque.Rogelio Taco, Ana Carol Condori Palma, Mercedes Mercado Gonzalez

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• Markets of Dispossession

  Duke University Press eBooks · 2020 · 1 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Business
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• Introduction to Thinking Infrastructures

  Research in the sociology of organizations · 2019-07-22 · 56 citations

  book-chapter

  International audience

  PublisherDOI

• Thinking Infrastructures

  Research in the sociology of organizations · 2019-07-22 · 65 citations

  bookSenior author

  International audience

  PublisherDOI

• Neoliberalism, Rationality, and the Savage Slot

  Fordham University Press eBooks · 2019-11-05

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  This chapter upends usual discussions of neoliberal governmentality by focusing on the relation of neoliberalism to the irrational. The central task of neoliberalism in its early days was to resurrect a discredited liberalism. WW I and the problematic Versailles Peace of 1919 convinced many that irrationality lay at the core of the “civilized” European world. Those who became neo-liberal (before the hyphen was eliminated) embraced that which was irrational while resolutely attacking all kinds of collectivism. Early neoliberals such as Mises equated socialists with savages and put socialists in what Trouillot called “The Savage Slot,” thanks to their wilful overthrow of the free market price system, without which rationality itself could not exist. Hayek and the next generation of neoliberals shifted the source of irrationality into the physiology of individual humans. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union against which early neoliberal polemics were aimed, tacit knowledge moved out of the body to the corporation via Jean Lave’s concept of communities of practice. The chapter draws on classic works in anthropology; history of economic thought; US corporate history; and obscure annals of the public sector in Egypt to make these arguments.

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• Neoliberalism, Rationality, and the Savage Slot

  Fordham University Press eBooks · 2019-10-02

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
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Frequent coauthors

• Martin Kornberger

  45 shared

• Neil Pollock

  University of Edinburgh

  41 shared

• Andrea Mennicken

  London School of Economics and Political Science

  39 shared

• Peter Miller

  37 shared

• Joanne Nucho

  Pomona College

  36 shared

• Bill Maurer

  University of California, Irvine

  27 shared

• Chelsey L. Kivland

  Dartmouth Hospital

  25 shared

• S Harish

  25 shared

Awards & honors

• First Book Prize from the American Ethnological Society of t…