Do Strict Criminal Penalties Protect Animals From Abuse?
In Mexico, a growing animal protection movement often promotes harsh criminal punishment for those who abuse animals. But are these strategies working, or do they lead to further…
Tag: activism
Through Film, Discovering Hope in the Face of Environmental Destruction
In the midst of acute eco-anxiety, can community-based filmmaking help young people imagine a different future? FILMMAKING IN THE ANTHROPOCENE A group of 12-year-olds enters a decrepit building…
The Museum of Other People: From Colonial Acquisitions to Cosmopolitan Exhibitions – review
In The Museum of Other People: From Colonial Acquisitions to Cosmopolitan Exhibitions, Adam Kuper interrogates the history of anthropological museums and considers questions of colonialism, race, and …
The Water of Our Gods: How Protecting a Psychedelic Cactus and Local Water Created a Popular Environmental Movement in Mexico
By Salvador Contreras § Havaiko’s safe return to his family was a stroke of luck. In a village nestled in the Wixárika Sierra of Western Mexico, Havaiko and…
Writing Indigenous Oral Tradition to Fight a Dam
In the northern Philippines, the Isnag are documenting their Traditional Stories to sustain their culture and fight a legal battle against dams that would inundate their homelands. ✽…
On Censorship and the American Anthropological Association’s Declining Democracy
The American Anthropological Association (AAA) is awaiting the results of a membership vote on a resolution to boycott Israeli academic institutions submitted in response to a solidarity call…
Section Three: Understanding as Resonance
Introduction: Understanding as Resonance Aja Smith and Anne Line Dalsgård In this third section of the thread, Understanding as Resonance, the essays explore that which happens when words…
Book Review: Citizen Designs: City-making and Democracy in Northeastern Thailand by Eli Elinoff
In Citizen Designs: City-making and Democracy in Northeastern Thailand, Eli Elinoff explores citizenship struggles and the political engagement of residents living in Northeastern Thailand. Unlike tra…
Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Anti-Boycott Laws?
Anthropologists are often quick to decry the law as a fig leaf for the exercise of raw political or economic power. Yet when holding bureaucratic sinecures, anthropologists’ daily…
Finding Ceremony for Ancestors Held in the Penn Museum and Other Colonial Institutions
An anthropologist and an organizer try to connect descendant communities with the remains of 20 Black Philadelphians slated for court-ordered burial. ✽ On February 13, 2023, a Pennsylvania…
Aného’s Disappearing Coast
How do people adapt when the ground beneath their feet starts to wash away? All over the world, coastal communities are facing the same challenges: rising sea levels…
The Conversion of Julio Tiwiram
What is shamanic power? And how does it affect modern politics in Indigenous Amazonia? In this episode, we follow the life of a young Indigenous activist fighting for…
How global fashion brands failed Rana Plaza’s survivors
by Rebecca Prentice The survivors of the deadly supply chain disaster were paid ‘rights-based’ compensation from global brands; it wasn’t sufficient to help rebuild their lives The Rana…
Crooked Cats
This book is a rich cultural analysis of how people live with big cats in India in times of the Anthropocene and climate change. As people are increasingly…
A Story of Icelandic Skulls
An anthropologist journeys to the Arctic Circle and finds a surprising story about the human remains that end up in museum collections. “Prime harvest”—that’s how one early 20th-century…
The Mexican River Defenders Fighting for the San Pedro
Nature-loving volunteers in the Mexican state of Chihuahua gather weekly on the banks of the San Pedro River to collect trash. But their aims are bigger. ✽ If…
The Colonial Roots of Peru’s Troubles
An archaeologist traces the current protests in Peru to exploitive labor policies enacted in silver mines during Spanish colonial rule from 1532 to 1800. ✽ Last month, Peru’s…
How the Early Battle Over Race Science Was Lost
Celebrated 19th-century biologist Ernst Haeckel pushed race science as his little known protégé Nikolai Miklucho-Maclay defended Indigenous rights. A biological anthropologist reflects on the impacts …
Tom Mould on his book, Overthrowing the Queen: Telling Stories of Welfare in America.
Interview by Fionnán Mac Gabhann iupress.org/overthrowing-the-queen Fionnán Mac Gabhann: Overthrowing the Queen represents one of several objectives devised as part of a collaborative proje…
Nicky Falkof’s ‘Worrier State’ – Part 1
Falkof’s book discusses the everyday experiences of fear and moral anxiety in the city of Johannesburg in post-apartheid state South Africa. Drawing on narrative accounts from political protests,…
The Path
A poet-anthropologist reflects on the musings of an older Noni woman from Cameroon who critiques anthropology’s past as a handmaiden of colonialism in responding to her daughter’s chosen…
Nicky Falkof’s ‘Worrier State’ – Part 2
Falkof, Nicky (2022): Worrier State. Risk, anxiety and moral panic in South Africa. Manchester: Manchester University Press. South Africa 2022 is a troubled nation: a continuing energy crisis…
Yes, Scholar-Publishers Can Make Common Cause After All
Last spring, I began work with the open access advocacy group, Libraria, as a Community Convener to help organize a mutual aid network amongst a group of open…
Broadening Demands for Reproductive Justice
An interview with anthropologist Dána-Ain Davis digs into abortion rights and reproductive justice after the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade. ✽ On June 24, the…