Reclaiming Collective Life in a Fractured U.S.
After Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential election win, an anthropologist set out across the U.S. to understand the nation’s deepening divides. In the new book Something Between Us, he…
After Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential election win, an anthropologist set out across the U.S. to understand the nation’s deepening divides. In the new book Something Between Us, he…
A lawyer and anthropologist examines the history of the longest road in South Africa and why a proposed extension may repeat past violence. While researching the history of…
https://www.dukeupress.edu/hailing-the-state Ilana Gershon: Why did you decide to call your book, Hailing the State? What becomes available for analysis when you understand protest as am…
For the eighth season of the SAPIENS podcast, we’re meeting at a crossroads of cultures—past and present—in search of humanity’s collective destination. Culture is a force that makes…
A group of forensic anthropologists argues their field must reject the myth of pure objectivity and challenge systemic inequities through advocacy and activism. ✽ WHEN A PERSON DIES,…
When activist and anthropologist Graeber died unexpectedly in 2020, scholars gathered to mourn him. Contributors to a resulting volume, As If Already Free, reflect on his legacy. ✽…
The speaker of a poem refuses linguistic erasure, passing secret notes with untranslated lines in Korean—keeping the language alive during Japanese occupation. “Passing Notes” is part of the…
Reflections on Rusha Latif’s Tahrir’s Youth: Leaders of a Leaderless Revolution (American University in Cairo Press, 2022). After more than […] The post Lessons from Tahrir for activists…
In the Ecuadorian Amazon, an anthropologist explores how the Shuar people are betting on dragon fruit cultivation to reclaim economic autonomy and political sovereignty. This article was originally…
A translator’s notes are refashioned into a poem calling for justice for Indigenous peoples in the Philippines displaced by a megadam. “Translation Notes” is part of the collection…
An anthropologist and poet reflects on a journey of return that tells a larger story about human connection, acts of Indigenous solidarity, and the potential for repair within…
https://www.ucpress.edu/books/uncommon-cause/paper Chip Zuckerman: Thank you, John, for engaging with me about your new book. I should start by telling readers that we went to graduate school …
By Peter Versteeg – This year, as Christmas approached, I felt a strong urge to visit a church. An advertisement in a vegan deli shop caught my eye:…
https://www.dukeupress.edu/disability-worlds This interview took place on Zoom rather than email, and has been edited to reflect our vibrant conversation Bridget Bradley: Having followed yo…
Anthropologists from around the globe brought dazzling insights and deeply reported concerns to the digital pages of SAPIENS magazine. ✽ We are honored to have collaborated with dozens…
Podcast with Chen Ying, Lecturer, National University of Singapore, in discussion with Fabien Provost, social anthropologist, French Research Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS). In her ethnogra…
Anthropologists and local activists in Indonesia and Peru uncover links between water scarcity and gendered violence, and work together to lessen the harms of gender inequality. ✽ In…
by Isa Prieto – I arrive at Chennai airport at 1 am. As soon as I step outside the airport, the humid air envelops me, and I immediately…
Educators and students critical of Israel’s war on Gaza face censorship, harassment, and dismissal. An anthropologist who researches coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians argues such critics n…
An anthropologist reports on the impediments to labor organizing—and why it’s still worth trying. ✽ In the notoriously anti-union U.S. South, a Volkswagen plant unionized. After months of…
An anthropologist conducts research in an Arizona retirement community, where older women share hard-won insights about how limitations on sexual and reproductive freedom impacted their lives. ✽ Kan…
In this Mad Max–like California landscape, artists and activists are inventing renewable alternatives to the capitalist system that’s developing but also destroying the region. ✽ Dusk at the…
What does it mean to speak about the cloud? While the term tends to conjure images of fluffy white objects, the cloud in technological terms is a complex…
Middle-class, conservative women in Pakistan have found a political voice as supporters of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party—putting them at odds with the secular women’s movement their own daughters…