Introducing the Anthropology of Adolescence

Adolescence is widely recognized as a key life stage, yet its meaning and experience remain under‐explored due to the complex interplay between biological and social transformations. While researchers across fields such as psychology and public health increasingly frame adolescence as a ‘critical period’, anthropology offers distinctive insights that challenge simplistic and reductionist accounts. This special issue introduces the Anthropology of Adolescence, situating the discipline as an important contributor to the emerging interdisciplinary interest in adolescence. Drawing on a century of anthropological engagement, we emphasize adolescence not simply as a passage between childhood and adulthood, but as a dynamic biocultural stage through which broader social, political, and ecological processes can be understood. The contributions presented here span different forms of anthropology, employing varied methods from structured interviews and focus groups to multimodal ethnographic research. Together, they demonstrate the breadth of anthropological research, foregrounding themes such as spatiality, intersectionality, and socialization. In doing so, this issue illustrates why anthropology and adolescence go together, and how the discipline can enrich wider debates on this vital life stage.