Thinking pain by Annelieke Driessen
Care worker Annika announces that she does not want to go to Mr Moran. “He always complains.” “I’ll go”, says her colleague Robin, and turning to me he…
Taking part in and being part of giving birth: Enacting participation in a midwife-led birth situation by Annekatrin Skeide
According to her midwife Jana, Mira’s was a textbook birth: it was quite fast, even for a second birth, and proceeded without any complications. In reflecting on her…
Opening up shrinking life-worlds by Maarten van Westen
Lives change dramatically as dementia progresses. Using observations of people suffering from obsessions and compulsions, I will analyse this change along three dimensions. Obsessive-Compulsive Disord…
Peripheral participants: Thinking through distortion, displacement, nullification by Henrik Vigh
Warm haze As I spoke, people looked at me worriedly. The kindness in their eyes was mixed with curiosity and concern. Rather than answering me, they turned to…
Fed up security officers and drunk policemen in Nairobi by Francesco Colona
Greenwoods is a neighbourhood in Nairobi, Kenya, dotted with diplomatic residences. At the time of my research on public-private assemblages of security provision and the reconfiguration of citizenshi…
Refraction of participation by Jeannette Pols
Refraction of participation What does it mean to participate? What does participation do?[1] The etymology of ‘participation’ traces from the Latin word participationem, which translates as ‘sharing, …
Irfan Ahmad, “Religion as Critique: Islamic Critical Thinking from Mecca to the Marketplace” (UNC Press, 2017)
In the last few decades, questions relating to Islam’s compatibility with liberal secular democracy, or the question of why Islam remains incompatible with Western liberal norms of thought…
Against Risk Perception: The Deficit Model and Public Understandings of Risk
The deficit model frames public controversies about contamination as a lack of scientific understanding or trust in government institutions. People are seen as deficient in knowledge about an…
Review: Le plus beau métier du monde
** This article first appeared in Allegra. Republished here with permission ** by Miriam Odoni Giulia Mensitieri’s book “Le plus beau métier du monde” Dans les coulisses de…
Soziologiemagazin goes DGS Kongress 2018: Eine Reflexion
Die Panelbeiträge und Diskussionen des 39. Kongress der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie in Göttingen wirken gedanklich noch nach, das milde Göttinger Stadtkolorit liegt noch in der Luft und…
In The Journals, August 2018 by Ann Marie Thornburg
Cultural Anthropology (Open Access) “A politics of habitability: plants, healing and sovereignty in a toxic world” Stacey Ann Langwick For Tanzanians, modern bodies bear complicated toxi…
Ep. #23 Decolonizing anthropology, with Sana Ashraf and Bruma Rios-Mendoza: this month on TFS
“We think we are supposed to be comfortable. As long as we are trying to do everything to be comfortable, we will never make a change.” In this…
From Reciprocity to Relationality: Anthropological Possibilities
In September 2018 the wonderful journal Cultural Anthropology published a special edition of their Hot Spots series that I edited. You can find the link to webpage for…
Freigeistige Organisationen als Gegenstand der Religionswissenschaft: Typen, Strategien, Widersprüche
Diesen Monat erschien die Dissertation von Stefan Schröder (Universität Bayreuth), Freigeistige Organisationen in Deutschland. Weltanschauliche Entwicklungen und strategische Spannungen nach der huma…
Salafismus in Deutschland: Gefährliche Wissenschaft? Rezension zum Werk Nina Käsehages
Wenn man diese Überschrift liest, mag das erstmal so klingen, als ob es um die Gefährlichkeit des Forschungsgegenstandes selbst ging, ähnlich einem glücklicherweise abgebrochenen Forschungsunterfange…
Institutionalisering van salafisme – Waar is de promotor? Een reactie van Ruben Gowricharn
Gastauteur: Prof. dr. Ruben Gowricharn ‘Waar is de promotor?’ Op 4 september 2018 promoveerde Mohammad Soroush aan de Tilburg University. De centrale vraagstelling had betrekking op de institutionele…
How does a platypus taste? About the flavours of STS at 4S Sydney, 2018
The 2018 meeting of the Society for the Social Studies of Science (4S), was held from August 29th to September 1st, (mostly) in the International Conference Center (ICC)…
Links & Contents I Liked 294
Hi all, The week started relatively calm, but after a last-minute invitation to a great conference on development volunteering in Cologne, a new book review and plenty of…
Algiers, Third World Capital (book review)
Not just for a development-related autobiography enthusiast like me is Elaine Mokhtefi’s Algiers, Third World Capital-Freedom Fighters, Revolutionaries, Black Panthers a literary treat! Mokhtefi’s mem…
extractivism conference, November 2018
Our colleagues from the peace studies institute in Tromso share the announcement to this conference, which sounds interesting. https://uit.no/tavla/artikkel/564387/resisting_extractivism_in_border_zon…
Tala Jarjour, “Sense and Sadness: Syriac Chant in Aleppo” (Oxford UP, 2018)
Religious music can be a source of comfort and release, but also a remembrance of sadness and loss. In Sense and Sadness: Syriac Chant in Aleppo (Oxford University Press,…
Book Review: Afghanistan Post–2014—Misreading Afghanistan’s Crypto-coloniality
Review of: Afghanistan Post-2014: Power Configurations and Evolving Tragectories. Edited by Rajen Harshe’ and Dhananjay Tripathi. (New Delhi: Routledge), 2016, pp. xix+248. The colonial and postcoloni…
Participatory approaches to design digital cultural futures. An interview with R. C. Smith
Rachel Charlotte Smith is assistant professor of design anthropology at Aarhus University. Her research focuses on relations between design, culture and technology, specifically on social chang…
Bracing for the Vanilla Boom
Vanilla beans are dried in the sun as part of the curing process. George Zhu As the vanilla market opens in northeastern Madagascar this season, some local farmers…