Baleful Gifts of Civilization: Smallpox Epidemic 1853
It is well recording in numerous sources that diseases from Europe came with the exploring Whitemen and infected millions of the indigenous peoples of the World with…
Den konstiga vardagen – i Oxford
Jag reste i väg till England den första februari. Det var meningen att jag skulle stanna i Oxford i tre månader, till den sista april. Jag väntade mig…
Major Benjamin Alvord discusses Eastern Oregon Settlement, 1853
In 1853, the former Superintendent of Indian Affairs of Oregon Anson Dart had been forced to resign as none of his nineteen treaties with the tribes were ratified.…
Will Reducing Sugar Intake Help You Lose Weight?
It is scientifically proven that large amounts of sugar consumption necessarily affects weight gain and can lead to a disease such as obesity. The main problem is that…
So You Want to “Do” Digital Ethnography
By Devin Proctor It’s a weird time, yes? Many of us (anthropologists) are teasing out the nuances between synchronous and asynchronous class meetings, dealing with the horror of…
Coronavirus: Less Humanitarianism, More Politics!
This essay was written seated on my couch, trying to make sense of the contemporary ‘state of emergency’ as the world around me has gradually come to a…
Against Social Distancing: A Call for Social Solidarity in this Time of Physical Distancing by Seth Holmes
In this time of apocalyptic “shelter in place” orders, school closures with impromptu home-schooling, and toilet paper shortages, everyone is asked and admonished to practice “social distancing”.&nbs…
The Space-Time of Infrastructure #Roadsides
“Lena, you can turn on the camera now.” The view of the space station changes from monitor to film image. The opening scene of Andrei Ujică’s film Out…
Mit Foucault die Pandemie verstehen?
Kann man mit den theoretischen Konzepten und historischen Beispielen, die Michel Foucault in den 1970er Jahren entwickelte, die gegenwärtige Lage deuten? Ja – aber anders, als man denkt.…
Copious Free Time: Rutgers and Melville House
More ebooks for your Copious Free Time! Rutgers is offering free ebooks related to COVID-19 and, unlike some offers, these books are actually tightly related to this topic,…
Case studies in social medicine: a review by Joshua Franklin
Case Studies in Social Medicine is a new series in the New England Journal of Medicine that began in 2018 and concluded in March of 2020, totaling 15 brief…
La pandemia del coronavirus, la necropolítica y los trabajos de mierda.
“Lo extraordinario del virus es su increíble insignificancia; los ojos no pueden verlo, pero él puede detener el curso de la vida, decidir el destino del hombre, y…
The return of the plague-spreader
Written in lockdown amid the pandemic, this post speculates about the political and epistemological implications of ‘middle-class’ reactions to the present crisis. It is also a cry of…
When the Silk Road Vanished #Roadsides
“I still need to cross Attabad before I reach home” – so our Shimshali travel companion commented matter-of-factly. We had just spent ten days walking along the Pakistan–Afghanistan…
Soc-te-la Chief of the Luckimute Kalapuya People
The following section of a letter to General Joel Palmer details that at least one chief Soc-te-la knew they were to remove and was working to gather his…
Zika, abortion, and care: the work that falls to women beyond the epidemic
Este contenido está disponible en español aquí. Feminist studies in geography, anthropology, and public health have indicated that women do more work during epidemics in terms of prevention…
What’s Wrong With “the Chinese Virus”?
Most Americans take it for granted that in the 1960s, more than 58,000 U.S. soldiers died in something called the Vietnam War. In Vietnam, however, there is no…
Mario Schmidt: “In Pipeline, Panic is Unnecessary” – How Poor Nairobians Deal with the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic
Mario Schmidt, University of Cologne Mototaxi drivers wearing face masks, supermarkets obliging customers to wash their hands before entering, hawkers selling indigenous vegetables as prophylactic…
Yellow Jessamine: A coronavirus haiku
Yellow jessamine infects a premature Spring: Fragrant and lethal. Gelsemium sempervirens, known as yellow jessamine or Carolinajasmine, is a toxic plant with alkaloids related to…
Why is there Need for Long-Term Investment in the Uganda Virus Research Institute, The Home of Zika? by Julia Ross Cummiskey
For Luganda click here. In early 2016, people across the United States became aware of a new threat—Zika virus. A New York Times article that April featured a…
COVID-19 and the Failure of Neoliberalism in the Face of Crisis
We are firmly set in the middle of a global pandemic at the moment. As it currently stands, the World Health Organization (WHO) is reporting just under 300,000…
#WitnessingCorona: Call for blog contributions
We are delighted to announce that the “Blog Medical Anthropology / Medizinethnologie”, Curare: Journal of Medical Anthropology, the Global South Studies Center Cologne, and boasblogs have jointly lau…
Review: Meat Planet
Benjamin Wurgaft Meat Planet: Artificial Flesh and the Future of Food. Berkeley: University of California Press. 264 pp. ISBN #9780520379008 Ellen Messer (Tufts University) I have to admit I…
On being voices of prudence in times of a pandemic – #Corona
Many academic disciplines have a lot to say these days about COVID-19. There are the medical experts, of course, epidemiologists, virologists, microbiologists, weighing in on the validity of…