Something between us: The everyday walls of American life, and how to take them down By AnandPandian. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2025. 304 pp.

Anand Pandian's new book, Something between Us, is a beautiful ethnography of the United States’ distressing political situation. It has an anthropological feel that is both classical and cutting edge, with an abiding faith in the power of ethnography to generate understanding across differences while providing critical perspectives on what anthropology is supposed to do, for whom, and why. As an ethnography, it stares straight into the face of contemporary US political divides and offers a sophisticated, nuanced account of these divisions, written with feeling in a way that will compel readers both within and beyond our field. The organization of Something between Us mirrors its argument. It considers the walls and barriers that divide Americans as they have intensified around four domains—the home, the road, the body, and beliefs—each serving as a topic for the book's four sections. Each section consists of three short chapters offering different vantage points on that topic, drawn from the particular locations and ethnographic encounters that Pandian experienced during his research trek across the United States over an eight-year span. During this time, Pandian talked to Floridian real estate developers about both gated communities and porch-less, inward-facing homes designed to withdraw from public spaces. He conversed with residents of a Black neighborhood relocated to the periphery of a Texas town during the Jim Crow era, whose descendants return to celebrate Juneteenth. In California, he interviewed SUV and truck designers, drivers, and critics who consider the protective impulses embodied in a desire to hurtle down US roadways in massive, heavy steel “bricks.” He listened to the perspectives on racialized bodies offered by white nationalist marchers in Tennessee, as well as Black environmental justice activists in upstate New York who are living with PFAS-related chemical pollution. He attended libertarian conferences in Las Vegas and conservative think tank gatherings outside Orange County, capturing both rigid beliefs and deep ambivalence. And these are just a few of the many encounters captured across the country. Throughout, Pandian works against overgeneralization by intertwining the motivations of those who advocate for hardened social boundaries in politically divided times with those of critics who attempt to counter and surmount those barriers. In a hallmark of excellent ethnography, surprising and unexpected moments arise throughout. While Pandian's overall research demonstrates how our political divides and instability emerge from the material configurations of everyday spatial and social practices, he retains an underlying faith and optimism that we can move beyond them. As he concludes, “The seeds of a more livable world remain to be found beneath the boundaries of this one” (p. 227). Before reading the book, I was doubtful that interviews from fleeting encounters across a vast country could capture something more than the cursory. How can one convey the complexity of “US society,” with its staggering geographic and population diversity? Yet what gives this ethnography its power is not Pandian's grasping after generalizations but his willingness to dig deep into the mutuality of specific social encounters and to openly engage his interlocutors. Pandian writes in an autoethnographic style that reveals his vulnerability (and bravery), including what it feels like to be a brown man at a white nationalist rally or to walk along a highway with vehicles built like tanks racing past you. It is his willingness to dig into his own experiences and reactions that provides space for reflection, analysis, and ethical engagement, making the whole far greater than the sum of its parts. The snapshots he offers are powerful because he creates his montage with great care, attending to its composition and diversity, and because he deftly and unobtrusively uses anthropological literature to help readers understand what lies behind each encounter. It seems unfair to ask for more when Something between Us is already so rich and ambitiously far reaching. But as I finished reading, I wondered whether we also need to dig deeper into what has made many Americans feel so insecure that they have thrown up walls in response (while keeping in mind Max Weber's critical insight that history is always multicausal). The fact that Pandian's book offers a cultural anthropological lens on American insecurities and wall building is both a strength and possibly a limitation. What might additional analysis of economic forces offer to contextualize these generative snapshots? The book is already seeded throughout with telling ethnographic details of such economic underpinnings. We hear in passing about the union busting, job insecurity, and loss of control over work conditions found among long-haul truck drivers, some of whom “pull coal” (or shoot intense bursts of exhaust from their tailpipes) as a last gasp of “freedom.” Readers glimpse differences between the quotations from conservative working-class white men and their wealthy white counterparts, both of whom might share space under the MAGA umbrella. (Other literature suggests that many white working-class men fear losing jobs and worry about a perceived lack of access to a truncated social safety net that they blame on “outsiders” unjustly monopolizing benefits. In contrast, some white wealthy men resent having to pay for a social safety net because of belief in an Ayn Rand–ordered moral universe in which they feel themselves to be the true creators of value.) Nonetheless, more economic analysis would have added another layer of richness to an already excellent account, especially in the final section of the book, where Pandian examines how “barriers of belief” are shaped by a divisive media terrain. In a fascinating discussion, he spars with a businessman he calls Frank, whom he met at a libertarian conference. They continue to text daily across their political divides as Frank derides COVID masks as “face diapers” and supports the January 6 charge on the US Capitol, while Pandian serves as a foil advocating the opposite viewpoint. Pandian notes that he and Frank had different “facts” at their disposal based on the media they consumed. Yet without more structural insight into how media ecosystems have been transformed in recent decades, might these depictions risk devolving into a cultural relativism that tries to bridge differences by simply arguing that we are working with alternative “facts”? Pandian briefly notes the power of for-profit algorithms in shaping our media experiences and attempts to speak with a Breitbart editor who unfortunately spurned his overtures. In the end, however, we don't learn why outrage on both ends of the political spectrum, rather than journalistic standards, has come to define media consumption or how a handful of billionaire oligarchs have consolidated monopolistic control over media and tech companies (and used the profits to wield power in other ways). Without greater attention to these structural changes, we cannot fully understand why the political dynamics transforming the United States are also occurring elsewhere in the world (even as the United States represents a particularly extreme example among wealthier countries). Perhaps such realities suggest where the next round of anthropological research might head, taking its lead from Pandian's thought-provoking work. Looking forward, however, might also require looking back. In many ways, Something between Us strikes me as a sequel to Gusterson and Bestemann's (2010) edited volume The Insecure American, which examined the growing political, economic, and social “insecurity” of Americans. Although the earlier volume is not explicitly cited here, Pandian's new book reveals how insecurities (both real and perceived) identified a decade and a half ago have exploded throughout American life with profound consequences for our political divides. If Pandian's work helps elucidate our contemporary moment, perhaps the next goal is to explicate further how the walls and barriers being built relate to broader economic and political transformations. For it is only by understanding and analyzing how these connect to everyday experience that we can be truly effective in advocating for change. In short, Something between Us is highly recommended. For many concerned readers, it will offer a much-needed glimmer of hope, thanks to Pandian's role as a trusted guide and his optimism and commitment to finding the cracks and fissures in the barriers he identifies. As an ethnography, it provides an outstanding and compelling spur to lively conversation on topics of critical importance.