No Olympics
Because of the money-suck, the corporate sponsorship (riotinto making the medals in London), the fake moralism about drugs, the ‘security’ policing, the clearing of the inner city of…
Category: English
Ep #78 Alternative Healing Practises & The Social Status of Shopping Centres: This Month on TFS
The Familiar Strange · Ep #78 Alternative Healing Practises & The Social Status of Shopping Centres: This Month on TFS This week we’d like to introduce you to…
On Teaching Food Justice
First food stamp. Washington, D.C., April 20, 1939. Harris & Ewing, photographer, Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2016875474/ David Beriss I am trying to figure ou…
A Tale of Two [Unvaxed] Women
We needed to find a new plumber. I called around. The first business that seemed willing to clean our boiler and replace a problematic hose spigot had availability…
Statement of Non-Compliance with Mandatory Vaccination in Canadian Universities
First it was not even a university, but Seneca College. Then it was the University of Ottawa. Then Carleton University, the University of Western Ontario, and the University…
Far Horizons, Arduous Journeys, and The Conference of the Birds
“The Concourse of the Birds” (ca. 1600), Metropolitan Museum of Art by Jon W. Anderson Amid the blizzard of punditry and spin-doctoring – especially spin-doctoring from perpetrators…
Links & Contents I Liked 412
Hi all, It feels like a lifetime since I posted my last weekly update with all the terrible news that is coming in from Afghanistan, Haiti & so…
“The Truth Is Not Known”: COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy as a Failure of Biomedicine’s Moral Legitimacy in Zambia by Justin Haruyama
Over the course of the last several months, a series of chilling videos have been shared across Zambian social media, purporting to link COVID-19 vaccines with a global…
Emalani Case, “Everything Ancient Was Once New: Indigenous Persistence from Hawaiʻi to Kahiki” (U Hawaii Press, 2021)
In Everything Ancient Was Once New: Indigenous Persistence from Hawai‘i to Kahiki (U Hawaii Press, 2021), Emalani Case draws on her own life experiences to explore the politics and ethics of … Visit…
Tom Mould, “Overthrowing the Queen: Telling Stories of Welfare in America” (Indiana UP, 2020)
It is a familiar story: A recipient of public assistance funds is caught buying expensive steaks, seafood, or other luxury foods with food stamps at the grocery store.…
Matthew Flisfeder, “Algorithmic Desire: Toward a New Structuralist Theory of Social Media” (Northwestern UP, 2021)
One of the most fundamental aspects of modern life is that much of it is lived on and through social media. We create profiles, post pictures, update stories,…
“Stop the Shot”: Resistance through Science, Religion, and Law
On August 4, an interesting event took place: “Stop the Shot”. This was a video press conference organized by the Truth for Health Foundation in the US, which…
Animating Stories of Global Migration
Who gets to tell the story of human migration around the globe? And what kind of story is it? The Story of Migration, an animated short illustrated by…
Book Review: The Daily Lives of Muslims: Islam and Public Confrontation in Contemporary Europe by Nilüfer Göle
In The Daily Lives of Muslims: Islam and Public Confrontation in Contemporary Europe, Nilüfer Göle explores the everyday experiences of Muslims in a number of European countries. While commending…
Rebecca Friedman, “Modernity, Domesticity and Temporality in Russia” (Bloomsbury, 2020)
From the nostalgic landed estate with its backward gaze to the present-focused and efficient urban apartment to the utopian communal dreams of a Soviet future, the idea of…
Spirits, Development and Chinese (Hydro)power: Ethnographic (Hi)stories from Upland Laos
In the extreme north of Laos, in Phongsali Province, lies a tiny village home to around 24 households. Until recently it was a monoethnic Khmu village. The Khmu…
Paul Michael Hedges, “Understanding Religion: Theories and Methods for Studying Religiously Diverse Societies” (U California Press, 2021)
This innovative coursebook introduces students to interdisciplinary theoretical tools for understanding contemporary religiously diverse societies–both Western and non-Western. Using a case-… Visit New Books in Anthropology for the…
Kristin Hanssen, “Women, Religion and the Body in South Asia: Living With Bengali Bauls” (Routledge, 2020)
Noted for their haunting melodies and enigmatic lyrics, Bauls have been portrayed as spiritually enlightened troubadours traveling around the countryside in West Bengal in India and in Bangla……
On Drones and Ectoplasms: Breath of Gaia
(Editor’s Note: This blog post is part of the Thematic Series Data Swarms Revisited) Painting form the art project On Drones and Ectoplasms: Breath of Gaia. ©Angeliki Malakasioti…
Bolo Tie Highlights: An IARC Collection Reflection
Duane Maktima. Bolo tie + buckle, 1974, detail. Silver, turquoise, gold-lip mother-of-pearl, ironwood, coral, leather. SAR.1989-7-177AB. Ph…
What Indigenous Languages Reveal About Bear Genetics
[no-caption] Alh1/Flickr This article was originally published at Hakai Magazine and has been republished with permission. Along the central coast of British Columbia, grizzly bears go by…
Illustrating ASSA’s findings with comics – part 3
By Georgiana Murariu & Laura Haapio-Kirk In this blog post, we present the third comic in our ASSA comics series – this time set in Lusozi, a neighbourhood…
Weed or Not Weed?
Weeding is an exercise in anthropology. How do we know what’s a weed? The great French anthropologist, Claude Lévi-Strauss, organized his 80-year career around one foundational principle: R…
The Ghost of Amanullah: Afghanistan Redux
The Khyber Pass in 1923 Historians generally assume that “modernity” jump-started in Afghanistan in 1919 with the crowning of Ghazi Amanullah Khan as emir and later as king…