How to be a sustainable anthropologist?
Anthropologists often see themselves as committed and active global citizens. But how much of what we teach and learn about sustainability is expressed in anthropologists’ daily actions? And…
Author: Leiden Anthropology Blog
Revisiting a ‘Lost’ Field
Sustaining a long-term relationship with one’s ethnographic field site is not easy. Revisiting Leiden after over a decade, I find that the communication revolution and globalisation have not…
Revisiting a ‘Lost’ Field
Sustaining a long-term relationship with one’s ethnographic field site is not easy. Revisiting Leiden after over a decade, I find that the communication revolution and globalisation have not…
Mind the gap: Mental health and a regulated insurance market in the Netherlands
In the Netherlands healthcare is organized by a regulated insurance market. This combination of state and market creates tensions that are explored in this short film, in which…
A struggle for care: public health and private insurance in Brasília
Access to healthcare takes us to the heart of Brazil’s polarized debate on social justice and inequality. This film explores some of the difficulties people face when they…
Risky Business: Crop insurance in rural India
In central India, agriculture is a risky business. As climate change has altered weather patterns and monsoon rains are becoming increasingly unpredictable, a new crop insurance policy promises…
The Price of Death: Life Insurance in Black New Orleans
Funeral directors probably know better than anyone that as long as we live, we are certainly going to die. Yet, for some, death may come at too high…
The Black Box in Bologna: A short documentary
By portraying seven perspectives on the recent spread of the black box in the car insurance domain, this documentary sheds light on the much-debated relation between responsibility, privacy,…
Creating a story: Large-scale bioenergy production and its critics in Sierra Leone
‘How thousands of farmers lost everything’ states the title of a recent Dutch newspaper article about the consequences of a large-scale bioenergy project in Sierra Leone. The narrative…
Footage of Failure: Multimodality in Practice
Failure is an unavoidable aspect of the ethnographic enterprise. And yet, failure should not be seen as a dead end. In the context of the FR&T program, we…
“Dance, sister! Dance!” New ways of doing ethnography in the city
“Dance, sister! Dance!” Dina is prodding my side, encouraging me to stand up and dance. “My friend is asking you to dance!” She points at her smartphone, which…
The Leiden School of Multimodal Ethnography?
In this blog, Mark Westmoreland provides some insights into how the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology at Leiden University engages with multimodal teaching & research. This…