Abstract

This essay introduces «Rivista di antropologia contemporanea»’s thematic issue on the anthropology of public policy, an area of anthropology that has been booming in recent years, but has seen relatively less engagement in Italy. The authors review the background to the development of this field, its methodologies and some of its arenas of interest. They argue that policy is not merely an object within anthropological study, but instead also provides an effective window for studying processes of governance in the contemporary world. Finally, they introduce the contributions to the issue, aiming to foster further discussion of the anthropology of policy within Italian anthropology