Ethos

Abstract This commentary reflects on the contemporary trajectories and futures of psychological anthropology through the metaphor of a “sea of anchors.” Rather than reproducing binaries of center and margin, we conceptualize “anchors” as temporary and dynamic points of orientation through which theories, methods, collaborations, and infrastructures condense and circulate unevenly across regions and disciplines. Building on contributions to the 2026 Ethos virtual issue, we argue for more decentralized, accessible, and collaborative forms of psychological anthropology that move beyond disciplinary silos while remaining attentive to enduring asymmetries in global knowledge production. We examine how psychological anthropologists navigate critical and often marginal positions between anthropology, psychology, and related fields, and how this intermediary position enables productive forms of interdisciplinary mediation, critique, and collaboration. At the same time, we emphasize that decolonizing psychological anthropology requires more than theoretical critique alone: it demands transformations in citation practices, research infrastructures, collaboration, and institutional accessibility. Contemporary psychological anthropology, we suggest, is uniquely positioned to engage constructively with both the humanities and sciences while critically interrogating universalizing psychologies, extractive epistemologies, and emerging global inequalities. By advocating for a plurality of interconnected “anchors,” we envision psychological anthropology as a politically engaged, empirically grounded, and globally collaborative field capable of fostering alternative forms of scholarly exchange and future‐oriented anthropological practice.

This essay shows the affective resonances of the collision of gods, humans, and rapidly shifting landscapes in a newly urbanized part of Suzhou, China. The first section discusses how ties to spirits are not just metaphors or projections of human kinship, but literal parts of a kinship system that invoke responsibilities of care, based on links of both affect and blood. The second turns to how such intimacy is not always pleasant, and how the closest relationships to gods often begin with sickness and suffering, and in some cases with death leading to deification. Examples of these intimacies include Amei's painful calling to be a spirit medium (and thus a god's daughter) and her niece Xiangling's death and deification as the concubine of the god who took her. The last section turns to the rapid urbanization of the area over the past two decades, which has destroyed all the local temples along with the villages they served. This dis-placement has created a new affect of frustration in the daughters of the gods, due to the interruptions of their responsibilities of care. In the case of Xiangling's mother, the frustration spiraled into madness after the urbanization process destroyed the statue of her deified daughter. Integrating Navaro-Yashin's analysis of spaces of ruin with insights from scholars working on the emotional tensions built into intimacy, we reveal how the dis-placements of rapid urbanization have transformed those intimacies to create an affective and embodied ruination. (sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic), (sic)(sic),(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic).(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic), (sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic), (sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic), (sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic).(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic), (sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic), (sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic), (sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic), (sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic).(sic)(sic), (sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)((sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)), (sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic).(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic), (sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic).(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic), (sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic).(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic), (sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic), (sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic).(sic)(sic) Navaro-Yashin (sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic), (sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic), (sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic), (sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic),(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic).

In 1990 Charles Lindholm published his landmark study of Charisma, shedding new light on a complex and controversial topic. Today, more than 30 years later, understanding charisma has become newly important as authoritarian leaders and populist politics have begun to reshape the global political landscape. This paper returns to Lindholm's original study to address the two phenomena Lindholm felt were most important - namely, the personality configurations of charismatic leaders and their followers and group psychodynamics. Unlike Lindholm, however, I approach these phenomena from the vantage point of intersubjective self psychology, a post-Freudian theoretical framework that is particularly well-suited for analyzing the popular appeal of figures like Jim Jones and the group dynamics that bonded the members of the People's Temple to the movement. To make this point, Lindholm's original case studies are referenced throughout the paper and a distinction between destructive and reparative leadership is made to highlight the difference between 'leading' and 'trailing' edge orientations as they pertain to charismatic leaders and their movements.

This auto-ethnographic analysis describes the loss of my ethical worldview and my attempts to regain it following the October 7th Hamas attack on Israel and the subsequent Israeli retaliation. On October 7th, I was unable to feel compassion for the people of Gaza or to take action against the Israeli retaliation, aspects that I used to see as foundational to my humanistic worldview. As I lost my intuitive understanding of humanism, I realized that it had become to me what Hannah Arendt defined as a "frozen" thought, a fixed and unquestioned concept. Drawing upon my attempts to "defrost" my humanistic worldview, this essay critically considers Arendt's theorization and offers an ethical perspective that is grounded on ambiguity rather than on clear and fixed concepts. Focusing on these internal processes also illuminates the moral atmosphere that enables an Israeli public discourse that largely facilitates the violent retaliation against Palestinians.

How can uncertainty become a resource for ethical life rather than a threat to it? Focusing on a Zongo community in Accra, Ghana-also known as a "traveler's camp" or "stranger's quarters"-this article examines how people use a creative form of communication called the practice of folding to sustain relationships shaped by conditions of uncertainty. I define this practice as a form of indirect communication that brings together opposing ideas, materialities, and geographies that are not typically associated with one another. Contributing to literature at the intersection of uncertainty, language, and morality, I argue that the practice of folding cultivates and sustains intersubjective uncertainty, inviting participants to keep doubt, questioning, and possibilities in active tension. It enables a particular form of ethical attunement I term an ethics of traveling-with-an obligation to continually shift perspectives in order to understand other points of view, thereby delaying or even refusing resolution. These findings offer new insights into moral life in contexts of fragility, improvisation, and interdependence, challenging the common assumption that moral striving necessarily seeks resolution, judgment, or evaluation.

This theoretical and ethnographic paper examines how the finding of accurate reports about what happened to the detained-disappeared supports the psychological stability of the families of the missing. Drawing on a number of Winnicott's theories (the transitional object, transitional phenomena, and a sense of aliveness), alongside my field research in Chile, I will consider how the absence of a corpse, a death without ritual, and a mourning process without cultural support has affected the families of the detained-disappeared. Furthermore, I will contemplate how receiving an accurate report of events has helped families to come to terms with their loss. I hypothesize that texts can have the function of a transitional object in the process of recognizing the death of loved one. If the truth can be substituted by the written word, the void left by the disappearance has the chance to be filled. In this study, fieldwork was conducted at the Association of Families of the Detained-Disappeared in Santiago, through which 52 families were interviewed. Research was also undertaken in Parral where the German colony Colonia Dignidad has had a strong influence on the community since its creation in 1961 to the present day. Cet article th & eacute;orique et ethnographique analyse comment l'acc & egrave;s & agrave; des rapports fiables sur le sort des d & eacute;tenus-disparus soutient la stabilit & eacute; psychologique de leurs familles. En mobilisant les notions winnicottiennes d'objet transitionnel, de ph & eacute;nom & egrave;nes transitionnels et de sentiment de vitalit & eacute;, ainsi que mes recherches de terrain au Chili, j'examine comment l'absence de d & eacute;pouille, de rituel mortuaire et de cadres culturels de deuil a entrav & eacute; la reconnaissance de la mort. Je montre que la r & eacute;ception d'un rapport pr & eacute;cis peut aider les familles & agrave; affronter la perte. J'avance que certains textes fonctionnent comme objets transitionnels : lorsqu'ils parviennent & agrave; offrir une forme de v & eacute;rit & eacute; accessible, ils cr & eacute;ent une pr & eacute;sence symbolique capable de combler le vide laiss & eacute; par la disparition. L'& eacute;tude repose sur cinquante-deux entretiens men & eacute;s & agrave; l'Association des Familles des D & eacute;tenus-Disparus & agrave; Santiago, ainsi que sur une enqu & ecirc;te & agrave; Parral, marqu & eacute;e par l'influence persistante de la Colonia Dignidad depuis 1961. Diese theoretische und ethnografische Studie untersucht, wie der Zugang zu verl & auml;sslichen Berichten & uuml;ber das Schicksal der inhaftierten Verschwundenen die psychische Stabilit & auml;t ihrer Familien unterst & uuml;tzt. Unter R & uuml;ckgriff auf Winnicotts Konzepte des & Uuml;bergangsobjekts, der & Uuml;bergangsph & auml;nomene und des Vitalit & auml;tsgef & uuml;hls sowie auf meine Feldforschung in Chile analysiere ich, wie das Fehlen eines K & ouml;rpers, eines Rituals und kultureller Trauerrahmen die Anerkennung des Todes erschwert hat. Zugleich zeige ich, wie pr & auml;zise Berichte den Familien helfen, den Verlust zu verarbeiten. Ich argumentiere, dass Texte als & Uuml;bergangsobjekte fungieren k & ouml;nnen: Wenn das geschriebene Wort eine zug & auml;ngliche Form von Wahrheit bietet, kann es die durch das Verschwinden entstandene Leere symbolisch f & uuml;llen. Die Studie basiert auf zweiundf & uuml;nfzig Interviews bei der Vereinigung der Familien der Inhaftierten Verschwundenen in Santiago sowie auf Recherchen in Parral, das seit 1961 von der Colonia Dignidad gepr & auml;gt ist.

Helping is one of the key features of human sociality. The ethnographic record is pervaded by accounts of people doing things with and for each other from an early age. Developmental psychology has shown that by the time children begin to walk and talk, they already display helpful behavior in many situations. These findings suggest that the propensity to help is biologically based, rather than directly taught. While doing research on children's cooperation in Nanjing, China, and London, UK, it became clear to me that school-aged children were socialized into not helping, rather than helping. This raises the question: what are some of the cultural and psychological processes shaping this core human behavior? To address this, I bring together three levels of culturally grounded analysis: helping behaviors, the cognition of empathy, and its emotional underpinnings. Drawing on cultural ontologies of personhood, I show that in London, children are expected to be generally helpful, but not at a great cost to themselves, while in Nanjing, there is less emphasis on general helpfulness, but highly costly helping is expected in particular relationships.

This article examines how refugees and asylum seekers from the upper and upper-middle classes in their countries of origin contended with the prospect of downward social mobility in Madrid, Spain. Notably, downward social mobility involved losing not only material resources but also social status, opportunities, and imagined futures. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted at an official refugee and asylum seeker reception center in Madrid, I argue that this process of coming to terms with their new socioeconomic positions represents an experience distinct from acculturation or integration, and I assert that it comes with its own unique set of affective experiences, including feelings of distress, injured pride, threats to identity, and disruption to existing life plans. Furthermore, the pace of downward mobility impacted the dynamics of loss for refugees and asylum seekers. This has implications for broader psychological anthropological examinations of how people grapple with change and upheaval in their lives.

According to the notion of “parental determinism,” parents are paradoxically imagined as both powerful actors and in need of expert guidance and supervision. Subsequent research in different world regions problematizes the links between parental competence, child development, and societal ills. However, the question of what “good parenting” actually consists of is highly contingent. Based on ethnographic fieldwork among Ivorian parents and in a child welfare center, this paper examines competitive comparisons in baby shows, pregnancy consultations, and infant health reviews as performative parenting encounters in which parents, social welfare officers, and midwives interact as actors and audiences of “good parenting.” The paper analyzes contemporary parental determinism in Côte d'Ivoire as at once rooted in well-established local imaginaries of self and personhood and opening spaces for the development of aspirational parental selves. It looks at different ways in which parental determinism is enacted and talked about and how “doing good” as a parent and the well-being of children are grasped as entangled and mutually constitutive. The paper demonstrates that “beautiful babies” are a product of a shared understanding and co-practice. Making “beautiful babies” requires communal efforts to “be good” and “do good,” invoking the subjectivities of both parents and experts alongside their acts of parenting and counseling.

This article explores recurring problems in post-conflict studies of trauma through the lens of evolving discourses of psychic woundedness in post-genocide Rwanda. Research suggests that global psychiatric discourses did not enter the Rwandan public sphere until after the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi, at which point local iterations of trauma focused on (Tutsi) survivors of the genocide. However, in recent years Rwandans have begun to use an expanded notion of trauma to analyze individual and collective responses to not only the genocide but also other forms of historical and material violence. At the forefront of this trend are Rwandan "societal healers" who study trauma at a country-wide level. I argue that in order to overcome entrenched social divisions, societal healers deploy a "sociogenic" approach to trauma, or one that focuses on how structures of oppression produce psychic "wounds" across levels of society. Broadening their understanding of both trauma and identity, societal healers are invested in exploring how cycles of violence-physical and metaphorical-have shaped the lives of all Rwandans over time and how those cycles may end.

Political subjectivity is of growing interest within anthropology. In this article, I argue that within any political ethos, the constitution of political subjectivity takes place at the nexus of orientation and atmosphere. In this formulation, orientation defines subjectivity's intentional directionality in terms of value and desire, while atmosphere defines the socioemotional space in which that orientation takes place in terms of power and position. Drawing on research that utilizes an ethnographic, feminist, phenomenological, and psychodynamic approach, the article argues that the concepts of orientation and atmosphere can be leveraged to get a better purchase on understanding political subjectivity. Empirically, I show this across an array of situations, including political violence, incivility, gendered inequity, psychotic affliction, natural disaster, and the development of political awareness. Conceptually, I show that examining processes of self and will, empathy and power, denial and repression at the nexus of orientation and atmosphere can advance the theorization of political subjectivity within psychological anthropology and allied fields.

For the professionals who work or volunteer with detained migrants, providing care or advocacy requires navigating morally conflicting responsibilities and exposure to an environment of harm. Working in immigration detention spaces has a cost, both for the professional's mental health and for the detainees who rely on professionals' capacity to intervene in a system of harm and neglect. Bringing together moral injury and tactics, this article examines how professionals navigate and counter the morally injurious contexts of their work. Ethnographic interviews with detention employees, case workers, forensic psychologists, and medical evaluators revealed a range of strategies and outcomes of moral injury. While professionals used tactics like moral numbing or avoidance to protect themselves and continue providing care, the withholding or lessening of care has consequences for the detainees relying on their intervention. Yet not utilizing strategies has its own cost, as professionals experience burnout, trauma, and hauntings. Just as migrants are literally "caught" as they chase the American Dream, professionals feel morally entangled in circumstances of harm. In attempting to intervene or lessen harm, care becomes a justification for and a source of moral violence in professionals' lives. Through this analysis, I argue that a framing of tactics incorporated into moral injury better captures the diversity in how professionals navigate and respond to their moral injuries in ways that can disrupt or support the continued systemic violence in immigration detention contexts. Examining the moral dimensions to professionals' experiences and distress allows for more informed, targeted interventions to disrupt this harm and empower professionals' efforts to provide care and advocacy within detention spaces.

This article examines Per & uacute;'s transition from mental healthcare in psychiatric hospitals to a Community Mental Health (CMH) model. Based on 18 months of fieldwork on the outskirts of Lima, I show that one of CMH's effects has been an unexpected increase in rumors and accusations between neighbors. While mental health reforms have been characterized as a withdrawal from the state, I argue that CMH involves a series of interventions under the ethos of community care that create a new type of sociality and that bring together multiple actors who are now responsible and accountable for the care of deinstitutionalized individuals and their community. I propose the analytics of suspicion as care to evidence and analyze how residents are recruited and incorporated into CMH, and how suspicion, rumor, and accusation are conceived of as acts of care. Este art & iacute;culo examina la transici & oacute;n de la atenci & oacute;n y el cuidado de la salud mental en hospitales psiqui & aacute;tricos hacia un modelo de Salud Mental Comunitaria (SMC) en Per & uacute;. A partir de dieciocho meses de trabajo etnogr & aacute;fico en Lima, demuestro que uno de los efectos del modelo de SMC ha sido un incremento inesperado de rumores y acusaciones entre vecinos. Argumento que la SMC no implica un alejamiento por parte del Estado, sino m & aacute;s bien una serie de intervenciones & eacute;ticas bajo el proyecto de cuidado comunitario. As & iacute;, se produce un nuevo tipo de socialidad que articula a m & uacute;ltiples personas que son ahora responsables de la atenci & oacute;n de clientes desinstitucionalizados y de la comunidad. Propongo el concepto de "sospecha como cuidado" para analizar c & oacute;mo los vecinos son reclutados e incorporados al proyecto de SMC, y c & oacute;mo la sospecha, el rumor, y la acusaci & oacute;n son concebidos como actos de cuidado.

A wealth of societal concerns about loneliness has surfaced in recent years, raising questions about the negative impacts of increasing social lacks. Exploring a widespread saying among Danish vigil volunteers that “No one should die alone,” we ask: What is at stake in this concern with lonely deaths? And how is relationality practiced at life's end? Inspired by Waldenfels’ responsive phenomenology, we explore the concerns and actions of the vigil volunteers as a dynamic of haunting call and hesitant response. The call is voiced in heart‐wrenching images and in more clearly formulated critiques of loneliness in aging and dying processes within a transforming Danish welfare state. The response, “just holding hands,” comprises a “ poeisis of cessation” through minute embodied and sensed acts of being with. The volunteers do not expect their response to remedy the call; they more humbly seek to patch up perceived relational lacks in contemporary Danish society.

What percentage of American citizens believe that the real America is a White Christian America? How many would prefer to live in a more homogeneous or singular country, one occupied primarily by members of their own ethnic, racial, or religious group? In the face of contemporary changes in the composition of the population, to what extent have the White Christian citizens of the United States become fearful of demographic replacement? Alternatively posed: To what extent is ethnic, racial, and religious diversity valued by American citizens? Is it or is it not a basic feature of their ideal of what America means? Those are the questions addressed in this study. A representative sample of American citizens ( n = 986) was asked to estimate the actual and the desired distribution of ethnicities, races, and religions in the United States on the national level. We find that two‐thirds of our respondents want a more ethnically/racially diverse United States than the current demographics and over half of respondents want a population that is more religiously diverse than the status quo in 2020. Only a tiny percent idealizes a country that is ethnically or religiously homogeneous. The survey results suggest that the ideal of a multicultural country composed of diverse ethnic, racial, and religious groups is widely accepted. The results also suggest that the supposed fear of a national “Great Replacement” of White Christian Americans by non‐White or non‐Christian minority groups may have been greatly exaggerated.