A Bibliography for Teaching Flint
This bibliography is designed for professors who want to “teach Flint” in their classrooms. The Flint, Michigan water crisis is an extreme but quintessential case study that shows…
Manufacturing neglect: What happens to drugs once the epidemic has passed? by Jeremy Greene
We like to think that drugs help put an end to disease, although in the aggregate this is seldom the case. However many individual infections and infestations might…
Development tourism without adult supervision-Reflections on Aftenposten’s Sweatshop documentary
I just watched the second season of Sweatshop, a documentary produced for the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten (with English subtitles). Four Norwegian fashion bloggers continue their investigation int…
#Review: The Politics of Humanitarianism: Power, Ideology and Aid
Humanitarianism is a chimera, arguably an infection, but certainly an ethos and organising principle of our age that intersects with transformative moral-political modes of inquiry and praxis. This…
Beyoncé’s Anthropology of Labour
by Rebecca Prentice Last Sunday, the headline screamed: “Exposed: Sweatshop ‘Slaves’ Earning Just 44p an Hour Making ‘Empowering’ Beyoncé Clobber.” British tabloid newspaper The Sun claimed that Beyon…
Anthropology Boycott: Supporting BDS, Voting Against AAA proposal
After a long time thinking about it, I’ve decided that I support the BDS Movement for boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel. But I plan to vote against…
Anthropology Boycott: Supporting BDS but Voting Against
After a long time thinking about it, I’ve decided that I support the BDS Movement for boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel. But I plan to vote against…
Wofford College Commencement Address 2016
** On May 15, 2016, I had the honor of delivering the Commencement Address at Wofford College, the college I attended for my undergraduate degree. Here is the…
An Interview With Reviewers 1, 2, and 3
This is the third post in a sequence called Strange Rumblings in the Meritocracy. [What follows is an edited and condensed transcript of an interview I conducted with…
The Land of Lakes and Volcanoes . . . and a Canal
Anthropology and Nicaragua’s Interoceanic Canal The cab driver sized me (M. Petriello) up, “¿A dónde nos vamos?” (Where are we going?) he asked, assessing the fee and my…
The Nicaraguan Interoceanic Canal and Heritage Protection
Why consultations with Indigenous communities matter The construction of the Nicaragua Interoceanic Grand Canal has garnered only a sporadic interest in the news media, one that does not…
After the End of Disease: Rethinking the Epidemic Narrative by Dora Vargha
In conversations with people living with polio in Hungary, I often encountered members of the tight-knit community referring to themselves as “dinosaurs”. We are a breed that is…
HH-39: Why Good Science Doesn’t Need Eureka Moments
Dendrochronology—literally the study of tree time—is a multidisciplinary science that yields accurate and precisely dated information through the detailed analysis of growth rings in trees. Today, nea…
The Anthropology of the Built Environment: What Can Environmental Anthropology Learn from Infrastructure Studies (and Vice Versa)?
*A commentary on Part I of our Engagement thematic series, The Nature of Infrastructure. By Ashley Carse, Vanderbilt University § I am honored to have an opportunity to…
Under Surveillance: Islamophobia and Muslim Student Associations
In 2012, the Associated Press released a news report titled “NYPD monitored Muslim students all over Northeast.” In the article, we learn that the New York City police…
Almost no one can afford to retire
For the Chronicle of Higher Education, I wrote about the retirement crisis in academia, but it applies to US workers generally: America’s contingent faculty are not alone in…
Christen in China: Von Internetkritik und Kirchenschließungen
Die Stimmung gegenüber Christen in China ist bedenklich. Priester und Anwälte werden verhaftet, Kirchen abgerissen. Dies spiegelt nicht nur die aktuelle Abschottungspolitik der chinesischen Regierung …
Malcolm James, “Urban Multiculture: Youth, Politics and Transformations in a Global City” (Palgrave, 2015)
How is youth culture changing in a globalised city? In Urban Multiculture: Youth, Politics and Transformations in a Global City Malcolm James, a lecturer at the University of…
An Open Letter to the American Anthropologist and Responses
An Open Letter to the American Anthropologist Nadia Abu El-Haj Susan Slyomovics The recent issue of the American Anthropologist included a section presenting nine views on anthropology in…
Creator brands: Brands that make culture
At their most powerful, brands actually make culture. Creator brands, let’s call them. Nike changed the way we thought about exercise, fitness, bodies and diet in the 1970s…
Anthro in the news 5/16/16
Is voting “sacred” in India? Mukulika Bannerjee, associate professor of social anthropology at the London School of Economics and director of the South Asia Centre, published an op-ed…
Brooke Schedneck, “Thailand’s International Meditation Centers” (Routledge, 2015)
In her recent monograph, Thailand’s International Meditation Centers: Tourism and the Global Commodification of Religious Practices (Routledge, 2015), Brooke Schedneck examines Buddhist meditati… Visit New Books in Anthropology…
CFP: Special Issue on “Ethnographies of Security”
See below a CFP for a special issue of the journal Qualitative Sociology on “Ethnographies of Security,” to be guest edited by Anthropoliteia contributor Rebecca Hanson The policies…
Activating and Deactivating Heritage Symbols
On the Tubman $20 and Other Symbolic Controversies After a long controversy between students and upper-level administration, Yale University decided not to remove the name of John C.…