Jason Pine is an American writer and anthropologist. He is Professor of Anthropology and Media Studies. at Purchase College, State University of New York. He received his Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Texas at Austin. He was a Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin for Fall 2011
Academic work and publications Pine’s first book, The Art of Making Do in Naples is a study of the contact zones between ordinary people "making do" in neomelodic music scene and organized crime networks known as the camorra, was translated into Italian as Napoli Sotto Traccia: Musica Neomelodica e Marginalità Sociale and received the 2015 Premio Sila (Sguardo da Lontano).
Pine's second book,The Alchemy of Meth elaborates, in literary nonfiction form, ideas on self-enhancement and extractive capitalism proposed in his essays, "Economy of Speed: The New Narco-Capitalism",Pine, Jason. "Economy of Speed: The New Narco-Capitalism." Public Culture 19, no. 2 (2007): 357–366. https://doi.org/10.1215/08992363-2006-043 "Embodied Capitalism and the Meth Body",Pine, Jason. "Embodied Capitalism and the Meth Body." In The Body Reader: Essential Social and Cultural Readings, edited by Lisa Jean Moore and Mary Kosut, 164–183. New York: NYU Press, 2010. https://doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9780814795668.001.0001 and "Last Chance Incorporated".Pine, Jason. "Last Chance Incorporated." Cultural Anthropology 31, no. 2 (2016): 297–318. https://doi.org/10.14506/ca31.2.07
Pine narrated the audiobook version of the book for Blackstone Publishing in 2020.Pine, Jason. The Alchemy of Meth: A Decomposition. University of Minnesota Press, 2019. The book received the 2020 Victor Turner Prize for Ethnographic Writing,Society for Humanistic Anthropology. "2020 Winners of the Victor Turner Prize in Ethnographic Writing and the Edie Turner First Book Prize in Ethnographic Writing." August 3, 2020. Honorable Mention and the 2020 Gregory Bateson Book Prize, Honorable Mention Society for Cultural Anthropology. "Savannah Shange, Miyarrka Media, and Alan Klima Awarded the 2020 Gregory Bateson Book Prizes." November 9, 2020.
Research and reception
The Art of Making Do in Naples has been widely reviewed and cited across disciplines including anthropology, media studies, criminology, urban studies, Italian studies, and ethnomusicology. Scholars have praised the book's "graceful, engaging prose" and described it as a "sophisticated theorization of sound and space in marginal economies."Zinn, Dorothy Louise. "Review of The Art of Making Do in Naples." Anthropos 109 (2014): 655–657.Tochka, Nicholas. "Review of The Art of Making Do in Naples." Ethnomusicology 59, no. 2 (2015): 330–332.
Reviews highlight its blending of theory and narrative, and its analysis of neomelodica music as both aesthetic and infrastructural—intertwined with informality, affect, and organized crime.Martin, JoAnn. "Review." American Anthropologist 116, no. 2 (2014): 463–464.Allum, Felia. "Review." Journal of Modern Italian Studies 19, no. 1 (2014): 110–112.Inserra, Incoronata. "Review." Journal of Folklore Research 50, no. 1 (2013): 123–126.
The book has been referenced in discussions of ethnographic montage,Capello, Carlo. "Poetic Montage and Anthropology." Anuac 11, no. 2 (2023): 307–326. sound and sovereignty,Frasca, Simona. "La voce della periferia." Il Manifesto – Alias, June 9, 2013. media infrastructures,Colletti, Alessandro. "Review." ECPR Standing Group on Organized Crime Newsletter 10, no. 2 (2013). cultures of criminality,Azzarà, Stefano. "Review." Materialismo Storico 3 (2015). and aesthetics of governance.Ravveduto, Marcello. "Napoli sotto traccia." Lavoro Culturale, January 10, 2015. https://www.lavoroculturale.org/napoli-sotto-traccia
It is frequently cited in scholarship on Naples, ethnographic aesthetics, and Italian sound cultures.Maturi, Pietro. "Review." Anuac 2 (2013).Champeyrache, Clotilde. "Review." Crime, Histoire & Sociétés 19, no. 1 (2015).
The Alchemy of Meth has been cited as a contribution to anthropology, science and technology studies, criminology, medical humanities, and experimental nonfiction. It investigates rural methamphetamine production in Missouri as a form of late-industrial alchemy and precarious toxic craft. It has been described as "a deeply textured account of embodied toxicity and labor."Parikh, Aparna. "Review." Space and Polity 20, no. 3 (2016): 290–292.
Pine’s literary technique has been characterized as "ethnographic writing that disturbs the senses" and a "methodological experiment in contaminated storytelling," noted for its "dissolved narration" whose queerness resists "tidy categorization."Menoret, Pascal. "Review of The Alchemy of Meth." City 18, no. 3 (2014).Petrillo, Antonello. "Review." Etnografia e ricerca qualitativa 6, no. 2 (2013).Weiss, Margot. "Queer Theory from Elsewhere and the Im/Proper Objects of Queer Anthropology." Feminist Anthropology 3, no. 2 (2022).
Public engagement Pine's research has been featured in public radio, interviews, and cultural criticism, including: To the Best of Our Knowledge, Wisconsin Public Radio (2020): Public Intellectual with Jessa Crispin (2020): This is Hell! with Chuck Mertz (2019)
His work has also appeared in CityLab, The New Republic, GQ España, 032c, Atlas Obscura, and American Scholar.
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