New Years
Outside my new house, which is currently full of half-unpacked boxes and lamps waiting to be reunited with their shades, there’s a palm tree. If you go out…
Category: English
Minerals, Collecting, and Value across the US-Mexico Border
At first glance, it may seem that the value of specimens of opal, silver, or amethyst is related to their intrinsic qualities. After all, minerals ostensibly represent bits…
King Cake!
King cake, New Orleans style David Beriss University of New Orleans I ate three pieces of cake on Wednesday. All in the name of research, of course. I…
Time to look at girls differently
By Sophie Pape Are you happy with your life? The way you have constructed it? What if you were born in another country? Would…
Anthropological Irony
Cultural Relativism and the Destruction of Cultural Artifacts by the Islamic State Nimrud Assyria, Lamassus Guarding Palace Entrance, Before Destruction. Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons. Cultural rel…
The History and Cultural Sub-Text Behind ‘The Forest’
By Emma Louise Backe Undoubtedly, the Aokigahara forest, otherwise known as the Sea of Trees, which sits at the base of Mount Fuji in Japan, has a preternatural…
Mobile apps and the material world
[Savage Minds welcomes guest blogger Sara Perry.] Testing of mobile app prototype with users at the archaeological site of Ҫatalhӧyük, Turkey. Photo by Sara Perry, 2015. This is…
Burundi, I, and the year of 2015, by Gudrun Sif Fridriksdottir
“I miss dancing” a friend of mine says sometime in late June. “What?” I reply, thinking I must have misheard him. “I miss dancing”, he hesitates a bit…
Links & Contents I Liked 169
Hi all, The first week of 2016 has been quite fruitful reading-wise and I am happy to share my first review of the New Year! Development news: Medium…
US Anthropology: Political, Professional, Personal, Imperial
Part One of: “Canadian Anthropology or Cultural Imperialism?” Recent events have called into question how a discipline can be commanded on an international plane, and represented in a…
CFP: Digital Environmentalisms
Antonia Walford and I have a panel at this year’s Association of Social Anthropologists conference in Durham exploring the idea of Digital Enviromentalisms. Deadline for paper proposals is…
Top of the Heap: Elly Teman by Hannah Gibson
For this installment of the Top of the Heap series, I spoke with Elly Teman, a medical anthropologist specializing in the anthropology of reproduction and a senior lecturer…
Around the Web: Year in Review 2015
It’s been a big year for Savage Minds, so big that the annual blog review didn’t fit in 2015! (Yes, that’s why it was delayed). This year we…
In the Journals December 2015 – Part II by Melanie Boeckmann
Find the first half of December’s post here. New Genetics and Society Beyond and within public engagement: a broadened approach to engagement in biobanking Jose A. Cañada, Aaro…
In the Journals December 2015 – Catching up by Melanie Boeckmann
Happy New Year to all Somatosphere readers! Hopefully you were able to take a break and came back refreshed and ready to tackle your reading list. Not sure…
Ephemeral Layers: Coffee, Snapchat, and Violence
For decades, ephemeral layers at archaeological sites have been the bane of my existence. The moment I read, hear, or have to confront it at an excavation, my…
In the Journals – December 2015
As both the holidays, and the year, draw to a close, we here at In the Journals wish all our readers the best in their endeavors in the…
Barry Brown and Oskar Juhlin, “Enjoying Machines”
View on Amazon When we consider the television, we think not only about how it’s used, but also it’s impact on culture. The television, tv, telly, or tube,…
Sean McCloud, “American Possessions: Fighting Demons in the Contemporary United States”
Sean McCloud View on Amazon Exorcisms and demons. In his new book American Possessions: Fighting Demons in the Contemporary United States (Oxford University Press, 2015), Sean McCloud argues that…
What is the difference between a generalisation and a stereotype?
All anthropologists would agree that stereotypes cause harm and should be avoided. Yet anthropology mainly consists of generalisations about groups of people: the Nuer do this, the Trobriand…
Student protests and the crisis of South African democracy
#FeesMustFall protest in Pretoria, 23 October 2015. Photo: Paul Saad Click here for our analysis in the Boston Review of the 2015 student protests in South Africa. We…
Building Research Partnerships with Physicians and Patients
“At the last medical conference I attended, we were all told to find an anthropologist to work with on our research.” These were the opening words of a…