The Beaversoils of Onion Flat and Tualatin
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…
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…
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…
In early 2026, the South African independent game company, Nyamakop, released “Relooted,” a horizontal, side-scrolling heist game with lots of cutscenes. In this Afrofuturist game, players recover loo…
When insurers only expect to keep you for a year or two, your long term wellbeing becomes someone else’s problem – usually yours! Insurance coverage often changes when…
David Beriss Our last, but perhaps most famous, winner of this year’s SAFN Anthropology Day Photo Contest is none other than Carole Counihan, who comes in third place.…
The path from monogamy to opening up the relationship to polyamory is not an easy one. It exposes wounds…
A Case Study on Collaboration with UX and Data Science Introduction This post is related to two previous ones that may be of interest. The first is a…