Rest in Peace Amala.
Rest in Peace amala, my old Mummy, who always told me that I didn’t treat my husband right, whose company I adored. (If one could explain…
Foaming at the Mouth: World Cup, Ritual and Behaviour Change
Shared feelings and heavily ritualised behaviour commonly define football fans around the world. For decades anthropologists and sociologists have documented beautifully these aspects of fandom. And I…
What We Do Not Always What We Want
Customers hate Spirit airlines. Passengers routinely swear they will never fly it again; it ranks dead last in airline consumer satisfaction. Everything costs extra–the seats don’t even recline.…
Stress Test w/ Guest Luke Hanlin – This Anthro Life
Episode 33, Season 3 Feeling Stressed? Join Aneil and special Guest Luke Hanlin, Psychology PhD student, as they discuss the psychology of stress and the human capacity to…
Learning worth crying about
By the time I entered college, it had been over 10 years since I had read a book, and I was quite proud of myself. The last book…
Bringing Scholarly Book Review into the Digital Age: The American Anthropological Association Initiative
Better, faster, stronger. Whether Superman or Daft Punk, the motto works. But until now, these words didn’t apply to how academic books got reviewed. The American Anthropological Association…
Intrinsic Motivations and a Secret of the Good Life
In the Sunday NY Times, Amy Wrzensniewski and Barry Schwartz argue that the secret of success is internal versus instrumental motivation. They find that being driven by intrinsic…
The Culture Consultant: The Importance of business anthropology – 1/2
“Corporations live or die by their connection to culture”. This quote by the anthropologist and author Grant McCracken brings to the forefront the importance of culture within the…
Creative Intersubjectivity in Performance
Ethnomusicology Forum has just released a special edition on “Creative Intersubjectivity in Performance” with contributions from Elizabeth Betz, Monika Winarnita, Sean Martin-Iverson, Paul…
When Science, Customer Service, and Human Subjects Research Collide. Now What?
Now What?CC BY-ND Frits Ahlefeld I’m frustrated that the state of public intellectualism allows us, individually, to jump into the conversation about the recently published Facebook “Emotio…
berners-lee on snowden
It’s been almost eight years that I ↵last quoted ↑Sir Timothy Berners-Lee, the inventor of the Web, here at xirdalium. On 1st August 2006 I republished the following…
Keti Koti 2014 – Celebration, Protest, Commemoration
“The chains are cut” (Keti Koti in Surinamese – Sranantongo) is the Emancipation Day, in which the end of slavery in Suriname is remembered (legally 1963, de facto…
Keti Koti 2014 – Celebration, Protest, Commemoration
“The chains are cut” (Keti Koti in Surinamese – Sranantongo) is the Emancipation Day, in which the end of slavery in Suriname is remembered (legally 1963, de facto…
Keti Koti 2014 – Celebration, Protest, Commemoration
“The chains are cut” (Keti Koti in Surinamese – Sranantongo) is the Emancipation Day, in which the end of slavery in Suriname is remembered (legally 1963, de facto…
Keti Koti 2014 – Celebration, Protest, Commemoration
“The chains are cut” (Keti Koti in Surinamese – Sranantongo) is the Emancipation Day, in which the end of slavery in Suriname is remembered (legally 1963, de facto…
The Built Environment’s Social Costs, Part 1: Quantifying Productivity, Health and Larger Societal Costs
As designers, we have a responsibility to investigate and present the social costs and benefits of our designs to all key stakeholders. Whether its building safe routes to…
The Built Environment’s Social Costs, Part 1: Quantifying Productivity, Health and Larger Societal Costs
As designers, we have a responsibility to investigate and present the social costs and benefits of our designs to all key stakeholders. Whether its building safe routes to…
The Built Environment’s Social Costs, Part 1: Quantifying Productivity, Health and Larger Societal Costs
As designers, we have a responsibility to investigate and present the social costs and benefits of our designs to all key stakeholders. Whether its building safe routes to…
The Built Environment’s Social Costs, Part 1: Quantifying Productivity, Health and Larger Societal Costs
As designers, we have a responsibility to investigate and present the social costs and benefits of our designs to all key stakeholders. Whether its building safe routes to…
Fantasies that matter: Images of sex work in media and art
I am looking forward to being in Hamburg, Germany, in August, for this unusually interesting event. My own talk is called Disqualified: Why sex workers suffer social death…
Noisy Neighbors
So I went to see Neighbors. The premise of film plays upon a fundamental fear of middle class social life in America–the
Noisy Neighbors
So I went to see Neighbors. The premise of film plays upon a fundamental fear of middle class social life in America–the