Editorial on Editing
One of the most undervalued, but arduous forms of academic work is editing: organizing knowledge, judging quality, finding emergent themes, and forging connections. Editing is a form of…
Gifts are a traditional part of Christmas – but why do we give presents at all?
The Gift, written by Marcel Mauss in 1925, explores why we exchange things and the social rules we follow – and might help explain why gift-giving can be…
Gifts are a traditional part of Christmas – but why do we give presents at all?
The Gift, written by Marcel Mauss in 1925, explores why we exchange things and the social rules we follow – and might help explain why gift-giving can be…
Online Open Research – A collaborative approach
By Matthias Teeuwen – Some time ago I wrote a blog about the possibilities emerging technologies offer to the practice of qualitative research. Back then, I wrote that…
Article Alert! New texts in discard studies (Nov & Dec 2017)
Since critical discard studies doesn’t (yet!) have its own journal, conference, or department, Discard Studies publishes a regular table of contents alerts for articles, reports, and books in…
A Christmas story: Health insurance in the Netherlands
It’s that time of the year again. The days are short and cold, and we are looking forward to Christmas – the most wonderful time of the year,…
My development blogging & communication review 2017
In my first annual reflection on my development blogging engagement in 2011 I stated quite plainly: Development blogging has become part of narrative writing for those who work…
När halm hörde julen till
Vad är det som markerar att julen har kommit till din familj? Kanske är det pyntandet av julgranen eller pepparkaksbaket, men i äldre tider var det julhalmens intagande…
A note to the exhausted anthropology student
It’s the end of the term. You’ve handed in your papers, you’ve written your last exams. You’ve put the last few months behind you, and hopefully you’re able…
The Politics of Explaining Taiwan
Mail to Taiwan often gets sent to Thailand Imagine if, when writing a paper on Donald Trump, you had to start your paper by saying the following:1 The…
Anthropology’s Top Findings of 2017
“Fossil scout” Pedro Boshoff inside the Rising Star cave system in South Africa, where Homo naledi fossils were found. Wits University This year’s anthropological findings brought us fasc…
Five Years of Teaching Culture
Five years ago this fall we launched an experiment. As an editor at a university press, with an interest in ethnographic methods and a mandate for publishing teaching-oriented…
Top of the heap: Nayantara Sheoran by Hannah Gibson
For this installment of the Top of the Heap series, I spoke with Nayantara Sheoran Appleton, who is a medical anthropologist and lecturer in the Cultural Anthropology program…
Cartographic Abstraction in Contemporary Art: Seeing with maps
Claire Reddleman’s new book ‘Cartographic Abstraction in Contemporary Art: Seeing with maps’ is out now from Routledge Advances in Art and Visual Studies! Claire Says: “It’s all about…
Interview mit Prof. Dr. Thomas Scheffer – Für eine multiparadigmatische Soziologie in Forschung und Lehre
In der deutschsprachigen Soziologie tut sich gerade so einiges. Auf dem Blog der DGS schreibt Prof. Dr. Jörg Strübing von der Universität Tübingen über „Einheit und Uneinigkeit der…
The New Abolitionist Model
The New Abolitionist Model By Laura Agustín, was published in Jacobin Magazine 6 December 2017. I wrote this after reading Julie Bindel’s new book but my thoughts are…
A Christmas Anth(rop)ology
For this week’s blog, we decided to each write some thoughts on Christmas, from varied anthropological perspectives. We come at this from the position of people who were…
Kiddush: Local Flavor
Leslie Carlin The ‘Kiddush’ lunch is a tradition at many synagogues, including the one I belong to in downtown Toronto. It’s a shared meal to which all are…
Michael Leiris, “Phantom Africa” (Seagull Books, 2017)
Between 1931 and 1933, French writer Michel Leiris participated in a state-sponsored expedition to document the cultural practices of people in west and east Africa. The Mission Dakar-Djibouti…
Why Do We Wrap Presents?
[no-caption] Buppha Wuttifery/Getty Images The holiday season is here. That means presents under Christmas trees, next to menorahs, accompanying Kwanzaa candles, traded at white elephant …
Welcome to the Authoritarian Kleptocracy, Part XXI
My latest articles and interviews: Alabama proves that appealing to Trump voters is a lost cause. The power is elsewhere (12/13/17) — Globe and Mail With Trump, the GOP…
Anthropology & Open Access
Open Access Logo, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Open_Access_logo_PLoS_white.svg Anthropology and open access or “open anthropology” – selected resources, interviews and com…
Cultural Appropriation, Cultural Exploitation, Cultural Genocide: Problems of Neoliberal Diversity Management
“The Emergence of the Chief” is a statue on the Loyola campus of Concordia University in Montreal. {click to enlarge} In Canada, “a yoga instructor…says her free class…