Most employers in the United States routinely conduct criminal background checks on job applicants, weeding out those with criminal convictions—and thus denying opportunities to those who need them…
The Cultural Competence Collective welcomes Marika Duczynski onto the podcast to discuss cultural competence, decolonial practices, and community-led curation. Marika is a Gamilaraay and Mandandanji writer and curator and…
What do transitional justice aspirations look like a year after the downfall of the Assad regime for Syrians in the country? What can transitional justice mean for a…
Reading early descriptions of the Tualatin Valley, they are all focused on the valley’s potential in agriculture. This theme is similar throughout the Willamette Valley, settlers and farmers…
This week my posts will address some of the ways that medical gaslighting and dismissal of women is both expensive and dangerous. Women in the U.S. spend $15B…
One might intuitively assume that the Syrian Sunni ulama (religious scholars) would valorize periods emblematic of Islam’s bygone grandeur, such as the Umayyad or Ottoman empires. In practice,…
In 2022, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’s son died at the age of twenty-six from a lifelong battle with cerebral palsy, a neurological disorder caused by birth-related brain damage.…
My latest article is now out in a special issue of the American Review of Canadian Studies. In it, I look at the decade (or so) before the…
By Maaike Matelski, Eva van Roekel and Htet Hlaing Win – On 3 January 2026, the United States carried out a military intervention on Venezuelan soil, abducting President Maduro and…
Tribal Politics by Sara Hobolt and James Tilley argues that the 2016 Brexit Referendum created (rather than revealed) two opposing political identities in the UK: Leavers and Remainers.…
The winners of the Public Anthropologist Award 2026 are Edward Narain and Tarryn Phillips for their book Sugar: An Ethnographic Novel
In the years leading up to the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad and the downfall of the Syrian Ba’athist state, the Syrian state propagated what I referred to in…
Washington has rediscovered Myanmar’s chaotic borderlands—again. After cutting aid to the countryin early 2025, the US now promises Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) “strike forces” who claim to…
Emergent Southern Urbanisms: The Dynamics of Everyday City-Making When? 28-29 May 2026 Where? University of Helsinki, Main Building U3039 This two-day symposium is organised by the research projec…
Tässä podcast-sarjassa Helsingin yliopiston antropologian opiskelijat pohtivat yhdessä aktivistien kanssa vaihtoehtoisia polkuja kohti parempaa tulevaisuutta. Sarjassa kysytään, millaisia maailmoja me…
I’m touched to learn that this blog has just been listed in a roundup of the 60 Best Anthropology Blogs to Follow in 2026 (listed at #25). Thank…
For the last 6 years, I have been dealing with a health insurance claim for my wife’s hip operation in Thailand in January 2020. We were insured by…
This post examines how the new Syrian state seeks to reconstruct public memory through revisions of public-school curricula in a period of profound political and social transformation after…
Since Bashar Al-Assad was overthrown as President of Syria in early December 2024, the political situation in the country has been volatile. Although a new group of powerholders…
In Timor-Leste, children now learn to grow vegetables, conserve water, and design permaculture gardens as part of the national school curriculum. The post Permaculture Pedagogies and the Art…
In women’s health, the problem sometimes starts before the diagnosis – on the claim form. CPT codes are how physicians indicate the services they provide so insurers can…
Who gets to live a life with dignity? Each day, families around the world make the difficult decision to leave their homes in search of safety, stability, and…
Over the last thirty years, Latin America has undergone an unprecedented wave of reparations targeting victims of political violence during military regimes, Indigenous and Afro-Latin groups affected by…
In this episode of Displacing Universities Ian and Svitlana are speak with Marie-Christine Ukelo-Mbolo Merga about Perspectives AlterEgauZ* at the University of Fribourg. The post Perspectives AlterEg…