The Anthropology of Tax Network

The anthropology of tax explores how people make and unmake society through fiscal relations. This includes a focus on both the oppressive and liberating effects of tax. Anthropologists working on tax pay attention to how fiscal systems shape our relationships and identities, our ideas of who owes whom, and how history and culture in turn shape tax action.

Background

The tax network was born in 2022 out of a series of workshops and publication collaborations on the anthropology of tax. Our researchers work on diverse topics including accounting, auditing, administration, citizenship, ethics, valuation, economy, exchange, redistribution, care, and fraud. Our approach involves studying tax in local, national, comparative, and global perspectives and moves between multiple scales to capture the many views and standpoints that populate fiscal systems—the taxpaying individual, fiscal groups, tax-collecting organizations, tax policymakers, and the inner workings of larger economic and financial systems.

Objectives

This collaborative and international network draws on and promotes original ethnographic research on fiscal cultures and tax-focused state and non-state actions in diverse settings. The network seeks to provide a lasting platform for anthropology and tax, but also facilitate collaborations with researchers of tax in adjacent disciplines. We want the network to be a low-threshold medium for communicating news about projects, publications, or funding, but most of all, for arranging meetings and finding out about the work carried out in this emergent field.

Activities

The network organizes events that bring together scholars working on tax in ways that fosters collaboration across different institutions. We have a presence at EASA conferences, where we organize panels and network meetings, and facilitate the organization of further activities ranging from meetings to writing retreats. The network encourages its members to organize smaller local networking events to forward their work and collaboration. We actively explore opportunities to engage with wider audiences to communicate the anthropology of tax and tax cultures to non-academic audiences.

For additional up-to-date information, see The Anthropology of Tax Network website.

Mailing list

The network is now operating a mailing list. To join the list, click here and follow the instructions. Please also send a short paragraph describing your research interests (plus URL of your homepage if you have one) to the network convenors.

Network convenors 2024/2026

Network convenors 2022/2024

Founding members

Dr Johanna Mugler Lecturer and Researcher, Institute for Social Anthropology, University of Bern, Switzerland
Dr Miranda Sheild Johansson
Senior Research Fellow, Department of Anthropology, University College London, UK
Dr Robin Smith
Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at the Department of Organization, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark
Dr Matti Eräsaari
Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Helsinki, Finland
Dr Karen Boll
Associate Professor at the Department of Organization, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark