Periplus Circles

Periplus Circles explores the anthropology of power and knowledge: how legible structures mask operational realities, and why the mask takes the form it does in each place. Seminars gather ethnographers and practitioners working across Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, South Asia, and Southeast Asia—regions rarely examined together where the study of how power actually works demands granular, locally grounded conversation beyond silos. Proposed, given, and chaired by members, the seminars are held online under the Chatham House Rule. Each session convenes researchers from multiple regions around a single structural question, producing the comparative perspective that area-study boundaries ordinarily prevent. Members include university faculty, independent scholars, field researchers, and those with direct experience of the environments under discussion. Collected volumes on specific themes will follow. The first seminars will be announced shortly. Proposals for seminars or themes are welcome—please indicate when expressing interest. Open to anyone drawn to these questions.

Upcoming Seminars

The first seminars will be announced shortly. Members will be notified by email. Those who would like to propose a seminar or a theme are welcome to indicate this when they express interest.

Beyond its core work, and on a pro bono basis, Periplus Research is building partnerships to support the documentation of endangered languages, oral knowledge systems, and manuscript traditions—particularly fieldwork by local researchers documenting the languages, practices, and literatures of their own communities. When languages fall silent and traditions of transmission are broken, the knowledge they carried cannot be recovered. We welcome approaches from academic institutions, foundations, and researchers working in this area.