Voting for Our Better Selves; and Rules to Flourish By
Mike Pesca, in one of his artful spiels on The Gist podcast, punctures the conventional wisdom that we Americans want folksy presidential candidates, that we yearn for a…
Charleston: Continuing the Conversation
It has been two weeks since the mass shooting took place at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston, South Carolina. Makeshift memorials are still being…
Are Long-term Job Prospects Better for Philosophers than for Engineers?
The machines may not destroy us, but it’s quite probable that they will render our labor obsolete, and without the creation of massive new fields of employment. Of…
Rock Art in Panna – What does it mean to the people who live there?
The mystery of paintings made in blood A goat herder points towards the distant hills of the Panna Tiger Reserve and announces “You will find Khoon se bana…
REDUX: Tim Ingold on the Future of #AcademicPublishing
Tell me in what journal you publish and I will tell you who you are! As social and human scientists we are caught in the midst of conflicting…
Psytrance, a world unto itself
Most of what I knew about psytrance (psychedelic trance) raves before I actually went to one came from this article in Vice: Psytrance really is a counter-culture in…
Jamaica: A Queer Place
An aerial view of the city of Kingston, Jamaica. Photo courtesy of wikimedia commons. The dump in Riverton has started burning again. A stinking heap of tires, plastic,…
Web Roundup: Assorted stories by Lily Shapiro
It’s been a very busy week, and I imagine everyone has been reading a lot about Charleston, SCOTUS, the ISIS attacks, and Greece. This web roundup isn’t going…
Some animals are more equal than others – on net neutrality and roaming charges in the European Union
“Don’t ever let a good crisis go to waste.” While all of Europe is starring at Greece, the European Union has finally come up with new rules for…
Agony and Ecstasy in the Amazon: Excerpt from ‘Broad Street’
Never tell a Matsigenka shaman his tobacco snuff is anything but katsi, “extremely painful.” I learned this lesson the way I learned most of my lessons during fieldwork…
Agony and Ecstasy in the Amazon: Excerpt from ‘Broad Street’
Never tell a Matsigenka shaman his tobacco snuff is anything but katsi, “extremely painful.” I learned this lesson the way I learned most of my lessons during fieldwork…
Agony and Ecstasy in the Amazon: Excerpt from ‘Broad Street’
Never tell a Matsigenka shaman his tobacco snuff is anything but katsi, “extremely painful.” I learned this lesson the way I learned most of my lessons during fieldwork…
Some animals are more equal than others – on net neutrality and roaming charges in the European Union
“Don’t ever let a good crisis go to waste.” While all of Europe is starring at Greece, the European Union has finally come up with new rules for…
Agony and Ecstasy in the Amazon: Excerpt from ‘Broad Street’
Never tell a Matsigenka shaman his tobacco snuff is anything but katsi, “extremely painful.” I learned this lesson the way I learned most of my lessons during fieldwork…
Learning to write English
Image courtesy of Sharon & Nikki McCutcheon (Creative Commons) Of our team of nine anthropologists only three are native speakers of English, two from England one from the…
Promotie Daan Beekers: Opvallend veel overeenkomsten tussen jonge christenen en moslims
Overtuigde christenen en moslims in Nederland hebben meer met elkaar gemeen dan vaak wordt gedacht. Dit blijkt uit het proefschrift Kwetsbare vroomheid: het geloofsstreven van jonge moslims en…
New book from Anna Tsing: The Mushroom at the End of the World: on the possibility of life in capitalist ruins
The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins, coming from Princeton this September, details here. Matsutake is the most valuable…
Who do anthropologists think they are?!
You may have followed the ensuing debates around Alice Goffman’s ethnography and the broader moral, ethical and potential legal implications of her written account based on six years…
Siblings and Disability – Part II
This is the second installment in a two-part series about siblings and disability. The first part can be found here. What does Disability Mean for Typical Siblings? First…
#Review: Money from Nothing, Part 1 of 2
This post marks the first installment of our special review section on Money from Nothing. Deborah James’ Money From Nothing traces the evolution of credit and debt in post-apartheid South…
Was ist ein „Islam ohne Scharia“?
Eine Replik zu „Islamisierung Europas: Nein, ich habe keine Visionen“ von Michael Ley in der Presse vom 20. 6. 2015. Wie müssen sich die Angehörigen des Islam fühlen,…
Natural language and the language of thought
(This post forms part of our “book club” discussing Thom Scott-Phillip’s latest book with its author. This précis introduced the discussion.) I found Thom’s book extremely illuminating, ins…
Inferential communication and information theory
Speaking Our Minds is a timely book that very effectively frames many of the current important problems facing researchers interested in the nature of language and communication. Too few…
Sensory postcards: Using mobile media for digital ethnographies
As a mobile media practitioner interested in mediated everyday experience and urban space, my use of technology for collecting data, sharing impressions and observing cultural practices has sh…