By Barbara van Male – ‘When it came to major issues such as migration, climate crisis, inequality, I often felt a sense of unease. How could I to…
Door Freek Colombijn – Vers van de pers: het eerste schoolboek antropologie voor middelbare scholieren! Achter de saaie titel ‘Een kennismaking met antropologie’ gaat een levendig b…
By Peter Versteeg – The opening images of the documentary “White Balls on Walls” show us an ivory tower: a huge building, shining white, almost sterile, a stronghold…
By Barbara van Male. A freelance journalist, a UX-researcher, a policy advisor in radicalisation, a researcher in water management, and a senior officer at an NGO walk into…
By Michiel Baas. The University of Amsterdam has appointed a committee to investigate academic freedom within its institution. The reason for this is a complaint from lecturer Laurens…
By Luciana Massaro Writing ethnography can be an intimidating experience. As anthropologists we face the challenge to write and interpret what research participants share with us in a…
by Anastasiia Omelianiuk – There is a striking contrast between significant attention to Ukraine after the 2022 re-invasion and the pre-February abstinence of Ukraine in the global cultural…
By Maaike Matelski On 8 December 2022, Nickey Diamond visited the VU for two lectures. Nickey is an activist from Myanmar who recently started a PhD in Anthropology…
‘The midwife tells the woman in labour that she sees she is having a hard time during the contractions. “The strength of them is good, after breaking the…
by Jo Püst – This is the story of Samira the Snail. Together with various other animals and plants, she lives in a small village near the forest.…
By Marina de Regt. “So this is Xmas, and what have you done, another year over and a new one just began”, John Lennon and Yoko Ono sang…
by Peter Versteeg “Apology” is another word for acknowledgmentAcknowledging the past, but not just any kind of pastIt is a formal word for a moral occasionNo emotion, no…
By Thiago Pinto Barbosa. 156 million Brazilians were called to vote on the last Sunday of October. It was the second round of the presidential elections: Brazilians had…
By Barbara Arisi and Jean Segata In order to celebrate the mes de los muertos (month of the dead), we write this obituary. We pay homage to one…
By Louis Gregory – Few people know much about the surreal world of English small-hall boxing, a world away from its professional, globalised alternative. Small-hall boxing is a…
By Aleeha Zahra Ali A year and a half ago, I learnt what grief was. Before that I had known waves of sadness, despair, depression, heartbreak and anger.…
A History Month (Maand van de Geschiedenis) contribution by Peter Versteeg We live in a time when calls for public apologies for all kinds of historical wrongs are…
Door Esther Teelen “Ik maak een stopmotion waarin ik mijn veldwerkervaringen verwerk”, dacht ik direct bij het beluisteren van een discussie over het Nederlandse coronabeleid. In de langetermijnaa…
By Thijl Sunier On October 28, 2022, I shall give my valedictory lecture speech as professor of anthropology, chair of Islam in European Societies. The theme of the…
By Freek Colombijn. “Football is the most important thing of unimportant things”. The truth of this quote, which I often give in my classes, but which –if I…
By Irene Stengs On 1 September 2022, the Dutch Central Organisation for the Meat Industry (COV, Centrale Organisatie voor de Vleessector), a partnership consisting of organizations involved in…
By Lilian Ebbelaar Ramadan to me was always something that was so interesting. It had this kind of mysterious feeling and always felt strange to me. Why are…
We are pretty sure that summer is here! If you have no idea what to do with all this spare time, let’s see whether we, the SpW editorial…
Door Ton Salman en Marina de Regt Er spelen al een aantal jaren stevige debatten over de vruchtbaarheid van identiteitsdenken als politieke strategie, als strategie om te strijden…