Inequality in our midst

type="main" xml:id="sea212028-abs-0001"> The recent recession, Occupy Wall Street movement, Eurozone crisis, and growing recognition of the gap between the top 1 percent and the middle class have brought new attention to the problem of economic and social inequality in the United States in particular and across the globe more generally. In 2013, the Society for Economic Anthropology held its annual conference on the theme of inequality. This issue brings together papers presented at the conference. Although each article presents empirical research from a different part of the world and diverse cultures, some common questions emerge. Many authors investigate how unequal social structures are generated and maintained and the role of economic systems and cultural forms and rules in that process. Drawing on ethnography, they attend to the lived experience of social exclusion, dislocation, and relocation as systems undergo change. The process of change is itself also critical; how do people act individually and together in the face of inequality? These are some of the questions that the articles in this issue explore. The studies presented here document, through empirically grounded research, many aspects of these complex questions and move our understanding forward in new ways.