LaMDA and the Limits of Sentience
In early June, Blake Lemoine, then an engineer at Google, claimed that LaMDA, a Machine Learning-based chatbot, was sentient and needed to be treated with respect. LaMDA stands…
Category: English
2022 Fall Festival – I’m feeling like monochrome…
For (a lot) more information about the fall festival: 「Neighborhood Autumn Festival in Japan: A Multimodal Visual Ethnography and Performance」 https://visualanthropologyofjapan.blogspot.com/2020/05/…
Apprenticing Elsewhere
For the apprentice…who does not have the initial skills necessary to participate as a full member of a specific sporting practice, how are they to obtain the embodied…
British Colonialism and Railways to Nowhere in Northern Burma
In Northern Burma there is a railway bridge, the Gokteik Viaduct. It was completed in 1900 by a Pennsylvania steel company under contract to the British government, which…
2022 Fall Festival – Day Two
See yesterday’s post for Day One Photos. Here’s Day Two… I’m already looking forward to next year! For (a lot) more information about the fall festival: 「Neighborhood Autumn…
2022 Fall Festival – Day One
After two long years of COVID-19 restrictions, we were finally able to hold our neighborhood fall festival this year. The program was cut back a bit – no…
2022 ARHE Policy Brief Award Winners
The ARHE Awards Committee is thrilled to announce the 2022 Policy Brief winners. Please join us in congratulating: Student winner: Alyssa Basmajian for her policy brief entitled Doulas…
Maria Gunko: Violent faces of the Russian state
“Our whole state manifested itself in [Verkhniy] Lars, in a concentrated form: violence, mess, corruption, and indifference” – told me Vadim, who left Russia through Georgia shortly after…
Links & Contents I Liked 459
Hi all,What a week, eh? But while the UK is descending into a Benny Hill-esque tragic-comedic state, it also means more bad news for #globaldev-in the UK, but…
Vā Kōrero: Philipp Schorch & Paul Janman
Recap of the guest lecture by Philipp Schorch and Paul Janman at Vā Moana Pacific Spaces in Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand
Reflections on Chinese Sexuality: A Conversation with Weiyi Hu
How is sexuality experienced in contemporary China? What are the connections and tensions between China and the West in producing knowledges of sexuality? Dr Weiyi Hu notes that…
What Cargo Cult Rituals Reveal About Human Nature
In Melanesia, Indigenous communities developed elaborate rituals to bring themselves material wealth starting in the late 19th century. These practices reveal a profoundly important and universal soci…
Marx and Haiti: Towards a Historical Materialist Theory of Racism – Wulf D. Hund
This is out – much awaited and of importance: https://www.lit-verlag.de/isbn/978-3-643-91518-4
Book Review: Horizon Work: At the Edge of Knowledge in an Age of Runaway Climate Change by Adriana Petryna
In Horizon Work: At the Edge of Knowledge in an Age of Runaway Climate Change, Adriana Petryna explores ‘horizoning’ as a conceptual device that sets up new ranges and circumstances for…
The Janus-face of bureaucratic incorporation of Islam in Europe
By Thijl Sunier On October 28, 2022, I shall give my valedictory lecture speech as professor of anthropology, chair of Islam in European Societies. The theme of the…
Elsa Sjunneson, “Being Seen: One Deafblind Woman’s Fight to End Ableism” (Simon Element, 2021)
As a deafblind woman with partial vision in one eye and bilateral hearing aids, Elsa Sjunneson lives at the crossroads of blindness and sight, hearing and deafness–much to…
Mansi Choksi, “The Newlyweds: Rearranging Marriage in Modern India” (Atria Books, 2022)
Two neighbors from the same village fall in love and elope to a shelter for couples that break caste norms. A Hindu woman falls in love with a…
A History of Food Production in Yemen
In October, 2022, I participated in the Food Sovereignty Workshop at Ohio State University and discussed the issue of sustainable agriculture and water resource use to improve the…
Ashlee Dauphinais takes the page 99 test
My dissertation has been a deeply personal project from the beginning. It would make sense, then, that page 99 finds me in the middle of a section titled…
Ben Chappell, “Mexican American Fastpitch: Vernacular Sport and Cultural Citizenship in Mid-America” (Stanford UP, 2021)
Today we are joined by Ben Chappell, Professor of American Studies at the University of Kansas, and author of Mexican American Fastpitch: Identity at Play in Vernacular Sport (Stanford University…
Will a Nobel Prize Make Paleogenomics More Accountable?
An anthropologist offers possible directions for ancient DNA studies moving forward—especially regarding the field’s complex histories with Indigenous communities and public education. This article w…
Review: Beyond Global Food Supply Chains
Victoria Stead and Melinda Hinkston, eds. Beyond Global Food Supply Chains: Crisis, Disruption, Regeneration. Palgrave. MacMillan. Open Access. (2022) https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/…
How Can Societies Decolonize Conservation?
Two archaeologists reflect on how social hierarchies harm biodiversity and how to move away from conservation efforts based on colonialist values. ✽ When I (Tim) arrived in Hanalei,…
Embracing Black Positionalities, (Re)Centring Slowness: A Challenge to Anthropology’s Anti-Racism Efforts
Anti-racism efforts remain highly problematic. As anthropologists, we are usually aware of the violent, colonial, and genocidal histories of research on ‘race’ and realities of racism which have…