Hau Books is the book-publishing wing of the Society for Ethnographic Theory (SET), a learned society that also publishes the quarterly Hau: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, founded in 2011 by Giovanni da Col. Hau Books, founded in 2015 by Giovanni da Col, is committed to publishing the most distinguished texts in classic and contemporary ethnographic theory. Its aim is to situate ethnography as the central heuristic of anthropology and to return it to the forefront of conceptual developments in the discipline.
Our print editions are produced, distributed, and marketed by the University of Chicago Press, and digital versions are provided to university libraries through Knowledge Unlatched. Our open-access titles are available as PDFs in our catalogue and the Open Research Library.
Convinced that traditional publishers have been neglecting works by anthropologists writing outside the Anglophone world, Hau Books has published a larger proportion of its titles in translation than any other publisher in anthropology and will soon be bringing out works translated from even more languages.
Director of Hau Books
Frédéric Keck, CNRS-Collège de France, Paris
Editorial Collective of Hau Books
Matthew Carey, University of Copenhagen
Deborah Durham, College of the Holy Cross
Casey High, University of Edinburgh
Gonçalo D. Santos, University of Coimbra
Nora Scott, Editor and Translator
Hylton White, University of the Witwatersrand
Commissioning Editors
Steph Grohmann
Jens Kreinath, Wichita State University
Editorial Staff
Hannah Roberson, Managing Editor
Editorial Advisory Board
Nancy Levine, University of California, Los Angeles
Adam Kuper, London School of Economics
Former Editors
Catherine V. Howard
Vita Peacock
Erik Bähre
Giovanni da Col
Executive Publishing Board
The EPB takes decisions on editors recommendations, makes calls on funding allocation, and works on fundraising. This board include directors and two SET members acting as editorial advisors. It is distinguished from the Scientific Editorial Board which is consulted to receive an exclusively scientific opinion by both editors and the EPB.
Commitment to Open Access
Hau Books is uniquely positioned as an Open Access publisher in anthropology. Its mission ensures that anthropological research and ethnographic findings can be freely shared and made accessible. Hau Books has pioneered sustainable Open Access publishing, supported by library pledges through Knowledge Unlatched (since 2024, these include MIT, University of Manchester, University of Cologne, Case Western Reserve University, Freie Universität Berlin, Princeton University, University of California Riverside, University of Colorado Boulder, University of Exeter, University of Ottawa, and have included: Case Western Reserve University, Davidson College, Emory University, Kenyon College, La Trobe University, Memorial University of Newfoundland, NYU, Rice University, University of North Florida, University of Oregon, University of Ottawa, Universitätsbibliothek Bern, Zentralbibliothek Zürich).
For details on how to “pledge”, please visit the Hau Books 2025-2027 tab at https://knowledgeunlatched.org/anthropology-2/ page. Libraries that pledge their support for 2025-2027 will receive a complimentary paperback copy of each published title.
For titles not funded by Knowledge Unlatched, additional Open Access funding or grants can be sought. Authors are responsible for securing translation funding, with administrative support available from HAU.
SET Directors and Members
Scientific Editorial Board for Hau Books and Hau Journal
SET Bylaws
SET Privacy Policy
Open Access Policy
Besides publishing its titles in paperback and e-book formats, Hau Books offers all of its works as open access whenever possible. To do so, it registers its books under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licenses (CC BY or CC BY-NC-ND). Some reprinted or translated works may not be not available as open access due to limitations of pre-existing copyrights and permissions from the original publishers.