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ANDREW SANCHEZ
Anthropologist
ABOUT
Andrew Sanchez is Associate Professor in Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge. He is a specialist on the anthropology of class, labour and corruption. He also writes about race and decolonisation.
Andrew has conducted ethnographic fieldwork in urban India among industrial workers, trade unionists and entrepreneurs. He is the co-founder of the Cambridge-Max Planck Exchange for Economic Life (CaMP), and was formerly the editor of The Cambridge Journal of Anthropology, the Economics editor of the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Anthropology, and a member of the University Council, the principal executive and policy-making body of the University of Cambridge. He currently sits on the editorial boards of the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Anthropology of Work Review, Ethnos Brasil, and the Cambridge Journal of Anthropology.
Andrew´s first book ‘Criminal Capital: Violence, Corruption and Class in Industrial India’ was published by Routledge in 2016. Andrew is currently writing an ethnographic study of the Indian scrap metal industry, which addresses key conceptual debates in the anthropology of value and exchange. He has also recently published a major collection about ‘Mixed Race Thought’.
Andrew earned his doctorate in anthropology from the London School of Economics and Political Science in 2009. Prior to joining the University of Cambridge as Lecturer in Social Anthropology in 2016, he taught at the London School of Economics and Political Science from 2009 to 2012, was Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology from 2012 to 2014, and Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of Kent from 2014 to 2016.
Image Credit: Robert Pepperell, XXVII, 2006, Oil on panel, 29 x 20 cm.
TEACHING AND SUPERVISION
Teaching
Andrew teaches undergraduate and postgraduate courses in the anthropology of economy; anthropology of politics; anthropology of crime and corruption; anthropology of cities; anthropology of violence; anthropology of south asia; ethnographic methods.
Supervision
Andrew supervises doctoral students working on a range of projects related to questions of economy and capitalism, work and labour, criminality, and urban anthropology.
Prospective doctoral students should send him a research proposal of 1-2 sides of text that addresses three things:
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Why are your interests best served through an investigation of the fieldsite(s) you have chosen? Explain why a study of it is timely and important, and say what the research itself will look like.
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How will your project build upon recent or major work in anthropology that you are interested in? Look to the relevant literature and ask what is lacking in it. Then consider how you would address these gaps through your project.
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Convey what you hope is the broader anthropological significance of your project, and what it will teach the discipline.
PUBLICATIONS
BOOKS
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2019. Indeterminacy: Waste, Value and the Imagination. Berghahn (edited with Catherine Alexander)
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2016. Criminal Capital: Violence, Corruption and Class in Industrial India, Routledge
ARTICLES
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2025. 'A Mixed-Race Imagination' Critique of Anthropology 45(2):111-136
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2023. ‘Kill Your Ancestors: The Wars of Decolonization’ American Ethnologist 50(3):439-445
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2020. ‘Transformation and the Satisfaction of Work’ Social Analysis 64(3): 68-94
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2019. 'Understanding Labour Politics in an Age of Precarity' (with Sian Lazar) Dialectical Anthropology 43(1): 3-14
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2019. 'Everyday Barricades: Bureaucracy and the Affect of Struggle in Trade Unions' (with Eeva Kesküla) Dialectical Anthropology 43(1): 109-125
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2018.‘Canon Fire: Decolonizing the Curriculum’ The Cambridge Journal of Anthropology36 (2): 1-6
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2017. ‘The Novelty of the Gift: A British Anthropologist & the Trends of Ethnography’ History and Anthropology 28 (5): 553-559
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2016. ‘Profane Relations: The Irony of Offensive Jokes in India’ History and Anthropology 27 (3): 296-312
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2014. ‘Anthropological and Historical Perspectives on India’s Working Classes’ (with Christian Strümpell) Modern Asian Studies 48(5): 1233-1241
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2014. ‘Sons of Soil, Sons of Steel: Autochthony Descent and the Class Concept in Industrial India’ (with Christian Strümpell) Modern Asian Studies 48(5): 1276-1301
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2012. ‘Deadwood and Paternalism: Rationalising Casual Labour in an Indian Company Town’ Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute18 (4): 808-827
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2012. ‘Questioning Success: Dispossession and the Criminal Entrepreneur in Urban India’ Critique of Anthropology 32 (4): 435-457
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2010. ‘Capitalism, Violence and The State: Crime, Corruption and Entrepreneurship in an Indian Company Town’ Journal of Legal Anthropology,1 (2):165-188
EDITED JOURNAL ISSUES
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2025. 'Mixed-Race Thought' Critique of Anthropology 45(2)
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2019 . ’Labour Politics in an Age of Precarity’ (co-edited with Sian Lazar) Dialectical Anthropology 43(1)
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2018. ‘Canon Fire: Decolonizing the Curriculum’ The Cambridge Journal of Anthropology 36(2)
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2017. ‘The Indian Gift: a Critical Debate’. History and Anthropology 28 (5): 553-583
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2014. ‘Class Matters: New Ethnographic Perspectives on the Politics of Indian Labour’ (co-edited with Christian Strümpell) Modern Asian Studies 48(5)
CHAPTERS IN EDITED COLLECTIONS
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2024. ‘The Alchemy of the Circular Economy’. Circular Economies in an Unequal World: Waste, Renewal and the Effects of Global Circularity. O’Hare, P and Rams, D. (eds). Bloomsbury. pp. 215-224
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2022. 'Technologies of Transformation' Routledge Handbook of The Anthropology of Labor. Gill, L and Kasmir, S (eds). Routledge. pp.361-371
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2022. 'Mauss and the Gift' A Handbook of Economic Anthropology (3rd Edition). Carrier, JG. ed. Edward Elgar. pp. 35-44
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2021. ‘The Colour of Anthropology’. Reading Against Racism: A Berghahn Collection
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2019. ‘Systemic Criminality, Work and The Politics of Labour’. The Handbook of Organised Crime and Politics. Gilmour, S & Allum, F. (eds). Edward Elgar pp.374-388
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2019. ‘The Values of Indeterminacy’ (with Catherine Alexander) Indeterminacy: Waste, Value and the Imagination. Alexander, C & Sanchez, A (eds.) Berghahn. pp. 1-30
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2018. ‘The Fall and Rise of Class’. The Handbook of Political Anthropology. Wydra, H & Thomassen, B. (eds.) Edward Elgar. pp. 410-422
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2018. ‘Division of Labour’ International Encyclopedia of Anthropology. Hilary Callan (ed.) Wiley-Blackwell
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2018. ‘Piece Rates’ International Encyclopedia of Anthropology. Hilary Callan (ed.) Wiley-Blackwell
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2018. ‘Relative Precarity: Decline, Hope and the Politics of Work’ Industrial Labor on the Margins of Capitalism: Precarity, Class and the Neoliberal Subject. Hann, C & Parry, JP. (eds) Berghahn pp. 218-240
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2017. ‘Coercion and Corporate Power: Notes on Class Struggle in an Indian City’. The Corporation: A Critical, Multidisciplinary Handbook. Grietje Baars & Andre Spicer (eds.) Cambridge University Press. pp. 470-478
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2015. ‘Criminal Entrepreneurship: A political economy of corruption and organised crime in India’ Routledge Handbook of Political Corruption. Paul Heywood (ed.) Routledge pp. 67-76
OTHER PUBLICATIONS
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2026. Decolonisation and the Left (with James Heartfield & Ralph Leonard). Platypus Review 184 March 2026
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2025. 'Working Group on Investments in and Research Funded by Companies Belonging to the Defence Industry: Final Report' (Alaeddin, Aston, Bodfish, Clements, Denis, Myall, Peak, Sanchez, Virgo). University of Cambridge
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2025. 'Comment: Generosity as Ethics' Current Anthropology 66:4 632-633
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2025. 'Comment: Multi-Unionism, Union Bureaucracy and Untruth in Collective Ethical Self-making’ Current Anthropology 66:2 199-200
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2024. 'Can a Circular Economy Ever Work' Bloomsbury Academic Blog April 19th 2024
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2024. 'Why Do We Need the Gens Manifesto?' Boasblog April 16th 2024
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2023. 'Decolonization: What’s the Point?' CUSAS Magazine Lent 2023
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2022. ‘Work is Complicated Thoughts on David Graeber's Bullshit Jobs’ FocaalBlog March 4th 2022
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2016. ‘Corruption is both a symptom of the basic structures of capitalism, and a technology that supports them’. LSE South Asia. May 12 2016
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2015. ‘FT could be more critical of a company town’ Financial Times. November 12 2015
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2012. ‘Corruption in India’. India: The Next Superpower? LSE IDEAS SR010 March 2012: 50-53
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2011. ‘Criminal Capital’ LSE Connect, Winter 2011:12-13
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2011. ‘Taking Stock: Looting and the Left in the London Riots’ City Analysis
BOOK REVIEWS
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2023. 'A Labour of Love'. Review of ‘Classes of Labour: Work and Life in a Central Indian Steel Town’ by Jonathan Parry. Dialectical Anthropology 47 135-138
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2022. ‘I am the People: Reflections on Popular Sovereignty Today’ by Partha Chatterjee. Anthropological Quarterly 95(1): 233-236
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2021.‘Making Cars in the New India: Industry, Precarity and Informality’ by Tom Barnes. Journal of South Asian Development 16 (2):313-315
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2017. ‘Gangster States: Organized Crime, Kleptocracy and Political Collapse’ by Katherine Hirschfeld. American Anthropologist 119 (1):162–163
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2016. `Dream Zones. Anticipating Capitalism and Development in India´ by Jamie Cross. South Asia 39 (4): 908-909
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2014. `Anthropology in the City: Methodology and Theory´ by Italo Pardo and Giuliana B. Prato (eds). Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 20 (2): 379-380
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2009. 'Anthropology, Politics and the State: Democracy and Violence In South Asia' by Jonathan Spencer. Nations and Nationalism 15 (3): 555-556
CONTACT
Dr Andrew Sanchez
Associate Professor in Social Anthropology
Department of Social Anthropology
University of Cambridge
Free School Lane
Cambridge CB2 3RF
United Kingdom
