Observing Real America: A Beginners Guide to Nantucket
From whence do our myths come, and how do they bear similarities across continents and generations? Anthropologists continue to speculate. Meanwhile, the scenes of contemporary odysseys – be…
From whence do our myths come, and how do they bear similarities across continents and generations? Anthropologists continue to speculate. Meanwhile, the scenes of contemporary odysseys – be…
My heart was broken not by leaving individual people, but by leaving something much bigger. It takes us too long in anthropology to learn that the communities we…
Author: Stephanie Betz, PhD candidate at the Australian National University and a digital anthropologist researching the intersections between people and technology. Her doctoral research is an ethno…
“We think we are supposed to be comfortable. As long as we are trying to do everything to be comfortable, we will never make a change.” In this…
This week, a translation of an interview between anthropologist Eduardo Viveiros de Castro of the Museu Nacional in Brazil, and journalist Alexandra Prado Coelho. “My wish, with the…
Jodie (1:04), drawing on the book Down Girl by Australian philosopher Kate Manne, starts us off by asking what misogyny is, and how we should tackle it as…
This month, Simon starts us off (1:08) asking, how can we make the knowledge we gain from anthropology matter for policy and government? “There’s no reason why [anthropology]…
Each entry in the “Single Shot” visual anthropology series presents a single photograph or unbroken shot of video taken during ethnographic fieldwork, plus a short description, with an…
Technology is a social tool that requires understanding of social and cultural factors for it to be a driver of equality. Failing to incorporate an anthropological perspective into…
This post is a little outside our usual mandate, but we are intrigued by the idea that Professor Robinson proposes: an interactive online project she is working on…
With Julia’s PhD submitted (!!!) and Jodie back from her travels, the band is finally back together! Jodie starts us off, (2:04) asking if a theory from psychology…
While backpackers extensively contribute to the national economy as tourists and workers, they are only here on a short-term basis. Being temporary non-citizens there is less emotional investment…
Author: Dr. Natasha Fijn is based at the ANU Mongolia Institute. Her research focuses on multispecies ethnography and observational filmmaking. Ethnographic film and photography includes detailed obse…
One of the most popular jokes among anthropologists is how often our work is mistaken for palaeontology. Almost every one of my colleagues and even a few of…
The 27th of May to the 3rd of June is National Reconciliation Week in Australia. Reconciliation, for anthropology, includes reckoning with the discipline’s colonial past, and confronting the…
We need to acknowledge the role we all play in silencing research. Consider the times we have dismissed a colleague’s idea because it ‘isn’t worth it’, or immediately…
A few times a year, The Familiar Strange will bring you bonus episodes in languages other than English. In today’s episode, Poonnatree (Golf) Jiaviriyaboonya, lecturer in anthropology at…
Ian (1:25) starts us off by asking, just how well-written does a thesis need to be? “As anthropologists, basically what we do is write… whether it’s writing your field notes,…
“Storytelling: that’s part of the power of podcasts, and just the power of ethnography in general, to really have people tell their own stories. And I think it’s…
This month, Ian (1:12) asks how we should engage when people describe their culture one way, but our observations of their behavior don’t match those descriptions. What is…
Author: Nishadh Rego, a transnational youth, migrant, and new citizen of Australia. He is currently Policy and Advocacy Coordinator at the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) Australia. Check out some…
This month, Julia (1:12) prompts us to think about ‘vaping’ e-cigarettes as a clinical compromise for smokers with schizophrenia. Having observed this strategy to be effective in the…
How do we ensure that the #metoo movements reach beyond both Hollywood’s red carpets and academia’s Ivory Towers, to areas where a shake-up is arguably most needed? How…
Comparing my own experiences of death to those of the Tiwi culture that I learned of in my anthropology studies, the void that I felt in the months…