Apparition in Sugarland
A poet-anthropologist evokes a popular myth that speaks to the repercussions of—and possibilities of repair from—U.S. violence in the Philippines during colonialism. “Apparition in SugarlandR…
Category: English
How global fashion brands failed Rana Plaza’s survivors
by Rebecca Prentice The survivors of the deadly supply chain disaster were paid ‘rights-based’ compensation from global brands; it wasn’t sufficient to help rebuild their lives The Rana…
Notes on Beuret.
An annotation of someone’s article abstract is probably a bit unfair. I’ve managed some awful ones myself. Sigh. Here I was, stuck in a long meeting, listening to…
Lost in Quantification: The Microtechniques of Evaluation
“Look at the numbers!” Who hasn’t heard or even said that phrase during a debate? Does your company evaluate your work with performance indicators? We tend to take…
Nicole Constable, “Passport Entanglements: Protection, Care, and Precarious Migrations” (U California Press, 2022)
Passport Entanglements examines the problems with documents issued to Indonesian migrant workers in Hong Kong and explores the larger role that passports and other types of documentation play in…
Mitul Baruah, “Slow Disaster: Political Ecology of Hazards and Everyday Life in the Brahmaputra Valley, Assam” (Routledge, 2022)
Mitul Baruah’s Slow Disaster: Political Ecology of Hazards and Everyday Life in the Brahmaputra Valley, Assam (Routledge, 2022) presents a fascinating, ethnographic account of the challenges faced by communities living…
Godard’s “British Sounds” link updated
Godard “British Sounds” From 2009: You can find Jean-Luc Godard’s “British Sounds” in all its glory now. It is worth watching all the way through – from the…
Reflections on the Origin of a Dangerous Concept
On April 13 and 14, 2023, SAR hosted two events focused on the invention of the concept of race in eighteenth-century Europe and its implications. The conversation was…
Links & Contents I Liked 479
Hi all,A new post on humanitarian career challenges, news from Sudan & on reduced ODA spending, stories on migration, limited spaces for journalists, the complexities of transactional sex-plus…
Het eerste antropologieboek voor de middelbare school
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…
Science and “Alternative” Science; or, some Quick Meditations on the Virtues of a Feedback Loop
Many non-Western epistemologies and healing systems have long posited close ties between mind, body, and emotion. Or, rather, these outlooks have categorized as a single feedback loop what…
SpaceX’s biggest rocket flies for the first time: But Do We Understand What This Actually Means?
By Anna Szolucha We’ve just launched a rocket into orbit so why is the way we think about technology so fundamentally wrong? A historic launch Regardless of what…
Sylvia Ang, “Contesting Chineseness: Nationality, Class, Gender and New Chinese Migrants” (Amsterdam UP, 2022)
The question of who is Chinese and how Chineseness as an identity is constituted has been a recurring question, particularly in the context of the extensive Chinese diasporic…
My Search for the Origins of Clothing
An archaeologist uses climate data and tailoring tools to trace the invention and evolution of apparel in the world’s colder climates. seeking paleolithic clothing origins Not long ago,…
Joel E. Correia, “Disrupting the Patrón: Indigenous Land Rights and the Fight for Environmental Justice in Paraguay’s Chaco” (U California Press, 2023)
The Paraguayan Chaco is a settler frontier where cattle ranching and agrarian extractivism drive some of the world’s fastest deforestation and most extreme land tenure inequality. Disrupting the Patrón:…
Objects are beings – A poem
The way I approach my surroundings significantly changed after two years of working theoretically as well as hands-on with objects…
Embodied Robotics and the Future of Humanity with Lora Koycheva
When we think of robots, we tend to think of things like R2-D2, the Terminator skeleton, or a piece of machinery that automates the construction of goods in…
Barbara Sjoholm, “From Lapland to Sápmi: Collecting and Returning Sámi Craft and Culture” (U Minnesota Press, 2023)
Material objects—things made, used, and treasured—tell the story of a people and place. So it is for the Indigenous Sámi living in Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia, whose…
Two Myths Fueling the Conservative Right’s Dangerous Transphobia
An anthropologist attends the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC)—ground zero for the current onslaught of anti-trans rhetoric and legislation in the U.S. HOW THE RIGHT DEMONIZES TRANS PEO…
56: So on this Day I will wake up early to do a zoom guest lecture at 8:00 AM (Japan time)…
“Introduction to Visual Anthropology: Focus on Photo-ethnography.” The first half of the lecture will be about Visual Anthropology in general; the second half will be about my Tachinomiya…
People of the Peppers
Meet Katherine Chiou, an archaeologist who conducts research in Mexico and Peru to search for clues about humanity’s spicy romance with hot chili peppers. The world over people…