Homage to Those Who Hollered before Me Silence chose me I didn’t choose silence silence immobilized me I could not breathe in my own skin without breaking the…
Why are stand-up comedians better anthropologists than, well, anthropologists? And what happens when a Danish anthropologist takes the mic? Anthropology News recently decided to no longer accept prank…
How we practice and write ethnography matters. Poetry is one way to understand what it feels like to be human at a particular time and place. The difference…
What is does it mean to work post-graduation, and what does anthropology have to do with it? It happens every quarter. The conversation. Students ask us big questions…
Rami Malek claims “we’re longing for stories like” the one he won an Oscar for. Are we? On Sunday, Rami Malek won an Academy Award for portraying Freddy…
How memes articulate tech trouble and signal “all the things.” History repeats itself, “the first time as tragedy, the second as farce”—especially in Silicon Valley. In April 2018,…
Ethnography’s power comes from the margins. Not the center. A glance at my watch revealed that my colleague was already five minutes over his thirty-minute allotment. Students from…
How pop music videos perform a simultaneously Lahu and modern identity. As the music video begins, we see a young man waiting anxiously, peering through a gate. A…
While the US federal government remained in the longest partial shutdown in history, the Trump administration managed to make headway in its baffling effort to prevent transgender Americans…
Are we developing emotional machines with all-too-human capacities for care? An interactive scene from Gatebox Inc.’s promotional video. Gatebox Inc. There is a moment in Spike Jonze’s film…
Among Acholis, ideals of home and a good life are resilient even if everyday realities increasingly diverge from such aspirations. There is a tendency to think about love…
What we talk about when we talk about Tinder. I have never been good at dating. I simply refused to acknowledge the subtleties and rituals of courtship, to…
This text appeared in the American Anthropologist submission queue, somehow entered as an anonymous manuscript, which the ScholarOne system is not supposed to permit. It seems to consist…
For community organizers in New Orleans, action to oppose the carceral state first requires the building of community. We were in the middle of one of Voice of…
Thousands of garment workers who make clothes for global brands have taken strike action over low wages. It is time the Western consumer listened. More than 50,000 Bangladeshi…
AN invites you to go wild (or domestic) and submit proposals for our May/June “Animalia” issue. Whether your story is about bonobos or whales or bees, we want…
As the year winds down, Anthropology News rounds up our most popular articles of 2018. From critical reflections on the discipline and experiences of it, to grappling with…
How a global internet phenomenon is foreshadowing the effects of virtual reality and changing the way strangers connect online. Sitting in a home office filled with stuffed…
An anthropologist reflects on conducting research as an “insider” to the veteran population. Kreisten Downs For me, Veterans Day produces contrasting and sometimes painful emotions. Yet for others,…
Reflections on a career tackling some of the critical workplace challenges of our time. I could not have imagined when I entered the PhD program in anthropology at…
Does technology mean something different when it leaves the Valley and goes to the Beach? In the summer of 2016, during preliminary fieldwork in California, I met with…
Long-term residents’ experiences of technological disruption and resilience are an untold yet essential part of the Silicon Valley story. In May 2018, I spoke with Tom, an elderly…
In a climate of pervasive narratives of wealth creation and success, how can anthropology hold corporate and tech sectors to account? In March 2014, Business Insider published the…
How Silicon Valley’s wealth produces uneven impacts throughout the region. Silicon Valley is a geographic region, shorthand for all things tech, the global hub of the technology industry,…