The mediated modernities of Tuareg smith women
Occasionally I will be posting on this blog some notes under the broad theme of media and change in preparation for the volume Postill, J., E. Ardevol and…
Tag: Africa
Joe Trapido: Epochs and continents: Potlatch, articulation, and violence in the Congo
This post is part of the Modes of Production feature moderated and edited by Patrick Neveling and Joe Trapido. From the sixteenth century onward, European trading networks grew…
African Youth and Social Innovation
The light peering through the door from the adjacent room was dim. It was hard for me to read the notes I was trying to take. But I…
Ruy Llera Blanes: Revolutionary states in Luanda: “Events” and political strife in Angola
Last 11 November, Angola celebrated forty years of independence—a memorable date. However, these celebrations have been overshadowed by a movement of contestation that has turned a spotlight on…
Ain’t no Jaguars in Ghana’s urban jungle: luxury and the postcolonial bizarre
Sipping my morning coffee in the corrosive speech of Bernard Avle, the radio host of Accra’s Citi FM Breakfast Show – a deliciously satirical commentary on salient socio-economic issues…
Tu Youyou and the Nobel Prize by Elisabeth Hsu
When I interviewed Professor Tu Youyou in 2005 — in her office at the Chinese Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine, the work unit within which she had spent…
USFSP Researchers Make Groundbreaking Discovery: the First Complete Ancient African Genome
From left: USFSP Drs. John Arthur, Kathryn Arthur and Dr. Matthew Curtis, Ventura College. Photo courtesy of USFSP. St. Petersburg, Fla. (October 8, 2015) – An anthropology team…
Blind Pathways and Precarious Power in Inner-City Johannesburg
Matthew Wilhelm-Solomon Pastor Peter Ngoma leads the Easter service for members of the International Federation of People with Albanism and Blindness (IFPAB) on the theme of Revelation |…
We Are All Africans
An impressively interdisciplinary team of geneticists, biological anthropologists, archaeologists, and geologists has just published an article detailing the genetic makeup of a man who lived in Ethio…
Film Forum — In the Shadow of Ebola by Marissa Mika
It was only a year ago that the Ebola epidemic in West Africa was highly visible. Images of health workers dressed in hot and heavy hazmat gear, body…
NEW! — Joe Trapido: Elections, politics, and power in central and southern Africa
The conference “Elections in central and southern Africa, dynamics of exclusion and participation,” at SOAS on 26 June 2015, prompts me to some personal reflections. Elections in central…
Limn issue no. 5: Ebola’s Ecologies by Todd Meyers
We’d like to help spread the word about the recent issue of Limn, edited by Andrew Lakoff, Stephen J. Collier and Christopher Kelty, now in print. From the…
Best World Anthropology Training (outside the Anglosphere)
This reader question came in from my Living Anthropologically blog, in some ways related to the question there about what to do with a major in anthropology: I…
Daniel Jordan Smith’s AIDS Doesn’t Show Its Face: Inequality, Morality, and Social Change in Nigeria by Darja Djordjevic
AIDS Doesn’t Show Its Face: Inequality, Morality, and Social Change in Nigeria. University of Chicago Press, 2014, 208 pages In Daniel Jordan Smith’s AIDS Doesn’t Show Its Face:…
How did we choose our field sites?
Our project field site locations A question we are often asked is how we selected our field sites for the project. Why these nine sites? Why are there…
People with Albinism and Humanitarian NGOs in Tanzania: Identities between Local and Global Worlds
Giorgio Brocco This photo essay discusses the interactions between international and national non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and governmental organizations on the one hand, and local pop…
Fabulous Art from Abandoned Flip-flops
Cleaning up beach waste in the form of abandoned rubber flip-flops . . . recycling landfill-able castoffs . . . training low-income men and women in job skills and…
Fighting an Invisible Enemy in Liberia: the Use of Popular Culture Against Ebola
Two boys manifest the importance of dance in Liberian culture. Dressed in their best attire they shake their legs and tap their feet, with their faces composed throughout…
„Ebola is Real“: Christliche Rhetorik und Wahrnehmungen des Dämonischen in Liberia
Jonas Ecke Anfang August 2014 bin ich aus Liberia, wo ich meine anthropologische Feldforschung zu aus dem ghanaischen Exil zurückkehrenden liberianischen Flüchtlingen durchführte, nach Berlin z…
Annual Review of Anthropology, Climate Change, Anthropocene
This is a guest post by Sean Seary, a Hartwick College graduate interested in understanding human interactions with biological and social environments, and how anthropology can use that…
Ebola in Guinea: Zustandsanalyse eines erkrankten Staatskörpers
Anita Schroven Nach einem Jahrzehnt medialer Abwesenheit sind Guinea, Sierra Leone und Liberia wieder mit besorgniserregenden Nachrichten und dramatischen Bildern in der internationalen Presse vertret…
Ebola, Medien und Ethnologie – Offener Brief zum SZ-Artikel „Böser Zauber Ebola“
Die aktuelle Ebola-Krise zeigt, wie wichtig eine gute Zusammenarbeit zwischen Medien und Ethnologie ist, um in der Öffentlichkeit ein differenziertes Verständnis der gesellschaftlichen Reaktionen und …
„Ebola ist nur eins unserer Probleme“ ‒ Ebola-Bewusstsein, Misstrauen und Entwicklungshoffnungen in Sierra Leone
Anne Menzel „Ebola ist nur eins unserer Probleme“ ‒ in Telefonaten mit sierra-leonischen Freunden und Bekannten höre ich diese Einschätzungen bereits seit Monaten regelmäßig. Gemeint ist damit schon…
What the life of a pair of flip-flops can teach us about migration, inequality and studying up
Photo: Cíntia Regina, flickr During the recent (nearly) two years, I’ve been interviewing researchers that are part of the research project Overheating. The three crises of globalisation: An…