Why the world needs anthropologists? Because they make a difference!
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…
Category: English
Todd McGowan, “Capitalism and Desire: The Psychic Cost of Free Markets” (Columbia UP, 2016)
If you have ever gotten excited over buying a new object only to feel let down once you acquire it, then today’s discussion will be relevant to you.…
Andrea Acri and Paolo E. Rosati, “Tantra, Magic, and Vernacular Religions in Monsoon Asia: Texts, Practices, and Practitioners from the Margins” (Routledge, 2022)
Tantra, Magic, and Vernacular Religions in Monsoon Asia: Texts, Practices, and Practitioners from the Margins (Routledge, 2022) explores the cross- and trans-cultural dialectic between Tantra and intersecting ‘magical’ and…
What Molars and Math Reveal About the Human Brain
A paleoanthropologist explains what fossilized teeth—analyzed through a recently developed mathematical equation—can tell us about how brains have developed in utero over millions of years of human ev…
Camas Journal 2023: Baby Camas, Mowing, Cultural Fire
This year I tried to get out there into the field when the camas is beginning to erupt from the ground. I am not sure I have seen…
Kufun + Fun = CoFuFun at Tenri Station Plaza
CoFuFun is an open space for special events, gatherings and for children (and adults) to play. It was produced by Nendo, a not-for-profit arts and architectural group, to…
Juwen Zhang, “Oral Traditions in Contemporary China: Healing a Nation” (Lexington Books, 2022)
Oral Traditions in Contemporary China: Healing a Nation (Lexington Books, 2022) is the newest monograph from Professor Juwen Zhang of Willamette College. Through a historical survey and analyses of oral traditions like…
David Houston Jones, “Visual Culture and the Forensic: Culture, Memory, Ethics” (Routledge, 2022)
The relationship between images and truth has a complicated history. In the Western tradition, the Kantian settlement on aesthetic judgment as detached from external interests gave rise to…
The Future of Genes and Equality: A Discussion with Kathryn Paige Harden
If your genes make you better suited to succeed, is that fair? And if not, can anything be done about it? Kathryn Paige Harden – professor psychology at…
Julia Kowalski, “Counseling Women: Kinship Against Violence in India” (U Pennsylvania Press, 2022)
Women’s rights activists around the world have commonly understood gendered violence as the product of so-called traditional family structures, from which women must be liberated. Counseling Women: Kinship Against…
Five Highlights From the 2023 RAI Film Festival
This March, SAPIENS is partnering with the Royal Anthropological Institute’s RAI Film Festival to celebrate anthropological documentaries. ✽ The art of anthropological documentary filmmaking is thriv…
Review: Black Food Matters
Hanna Garth and Ashanté M. Reese, eds. Black Food Matters: Racial Justice in the Wake of Food Justice. University of Minnesota Press. Minneapolis. 2020. ISBN: 978-1-5179-0814-0. pp. 302.…
Designing Resilience – Behavioral Science Meets Humanitarian Action with Britt Titus
How to Build a More Resilient WorldThe COVID-19 pandemic leveled the playing field between those who have the privilege to avoid or mitigate disasters and those who don’t.…
SAPIENS Podcast Season 5 Trailer
In the fifth season of the SAPIENS podcast, listeners will hear a range of human stories: from the origins of the chili pepper to how prosecutors decide someone…
Gediminas Lesutis, “The Politics of Precarity: Spaces of Extractivism, Violence, and Suffering” (Routledge, 2021)
Based on critical theory and ethnographic research, Gediminas Lesutis’ book The Politics of Precarity: Spaces of Extractivism, Violence, and Suffering (Routledge, 2021) explores how intensifying geographies of extractive capitalism shape human lives…
Melanie Heath, “Forbidden Intimacies: Polygamies at the Limits of Western Tolerance” (Stanford UP, 2023)
In the past thirty years, polygamy has become a flashpoint of conflict as Western governments attempt to regulate certain cultural and religious practices that challenge seemingly central principles…
Erin Raffety, “Families We Need: Disability, Abandonment, and Foster Care’s Resistance in Contemporary China” (Rutgers UP, 2022)
Set in the remote, mountainous Guangxi Autonomous Region and based on ethnographic fieldwork, Families We Need: Disability, Abandonment, and Foster Care’s Resistance in Contemporary China (Rutgers UP, 2022) traces the…
Far-right anthropologies
One of the things that surprised me most after I began doing research on European far-right youth activists was my research participants’ statements on how much they love…
Transpositioning, a Hypertext-ethnography
This is a work of hypertext-ethnography. It is based on my research of a small genetics laboratory in Tokyo, Japan where I am studying the impact of the…
Spring Break continued: I returned to Tenri/Ojiba after over three years… 陽気ぐらし
The weather was beautiful and Tenri was mostly quiet… Some changes here and there, a few due to COVID… More barrier-free in the shinden, many old shops closed,…
John P. O’Regan on his book, Global English and Political Economy
Interview by Bonnie Urciuoli https://www.routledge.com/Global-English-and-Political-Economy/ORegan/p/book/9781138811126 Bonnie Urciuoli: Can you say a bit about how your Marx reading group …
Jessica Grieser on her book, The Black Side of the River
Interview by Anna-Marie Sprenger http://press.georgetown.edu/book/georgetown/black-side-river Anna-Marie Sprenger: First of all, congratulations on your new book! I am curious how you came …
Street Piano at Kintetsu Tenri Station!
For more info: Street piano installation location information site https://pianomitsuketa.com/9404/ Kintetsu Tenri Station Street Pianohttps://ameblo.jp/koukishoji/entry-12733266099.html When I was play…
Citing toward Community, Citing against Harm
Here I want to think through the politics and ethics of citing against harm in academia.