In modern Western discourse, copying and imitation have generally been considered questionable, second rate, and even reprehensible activities, as exemplified by art-historical literature on forgeries or educational and academic concerns with plagiarism and intellectual property rights. The recent ontological turn in the social sciences, however, combined with an anthropological fascination with liminality and boundaries, has led to an increase in ethnographic attention paid to copies and fakes as marginal and contested entities in material culture, understood as eminently social, that may help to shed light on questions ranging from the nature of human skill to issues of temporality, belonging, and morality. Moreover, anthropological interest in copies highlights their epistemological potential as expressions and repositories of creativity and change.