The History and Cultural Sub-Text Behind ‘The Forest’
By Emma Louise Backe Undoubtedly, the Aokigahara forest, otherwise known as the Sea of Trees, which sits at the base of Mount Fuji in Japan, has a preternatural…
Tag: anthropology
US Anthropology: Political, Professional, Personal, Imperial
Part One of: “Canadian Anthropology or Cultural Imperialism?” Recent events have called into question how a discipline can be commanded on an international plane, and represented in a…
What is the difference between a generalisation and a stereotype?
All anthropologists would agree that stereotypes cause harm and should be avoided. Yet anthropology mainly consists of generalisations about groups of people: the Nuer do this, the Trobriand…
Remembering Sidney Mintz
Ellen Messer Tufts University Sid Mintz was the greatest food anthropologist of all time. A dedicated social-justice scholar-activist, he produced path-breaking studies of Caribbean sugar-cane worke…
What FoodAnthropology is Reading Now: January 3rd Edition
January 3rd, 2016: Happy New Year, FoodAnthropology readers! Like every December and January, the internet is ringing in the year with lists–lists of old things, lists of new…
2015 in Review: Geek Girls and Gender
By Emma Louise Backe For several years, TGA founder Marie-Pierre has been conducting research on the fraudulent phenomenon of “fake geek girls,” a category of women who ostensibly…
Intricacies of Universal Health Care
What are some of the primary concerns of Universal Health and access to quality health care? Among researchers doing studies in this area, these concerns have raised new…
What FoodAnthropology is Reading: December 29th Edition
Hello FoodAnthro readers, we have just a couple of news items for this week’s round up. The first, and most significant, is the death of anthropologist and food…
Debating the End of the Human Terrain System, Part 2
US Army caption: “Fist bump–A group of local Afghan children bump fists with U.S. Army Soldiers assigned to the 1775th Military Police Company during a mission to Kuchi…
Debating the End of the Human Terrain System, Part 1
The US Army’s official caption: “Survey strategy–Human Terrain Analysis Team, Iraqi Police, and U.S. Soldiers with 354th Military Police Company in support of 1st Battalion, 68th Arm…
The Game of School
Strategies are the main learning outcome of all those years of school. Anyone who flunks strategy basically flunks school. Anthropology is a field of inquiry not only focused…
“Free Basics” – does it really matter to the poor in Panchagrami?
Image Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons: Facebook The launch of Facebook’s ‘Free Basics’, a rebranding of internet.org, has been a hot topic in India for the past few months as Facebook tries to…
Bagram Santa
Easily lending themselves to multiple forms of misunderstanding, the Pentagon nevertheless regularly produces images of military personnel dressed as Santa Claus. This too is a pattern, minor in…
Romanian shepherds at the baracades
Shepherds protesting in Bucharest. Photo EPA. Everyone once in a while I read a news headline that makes me do a double take: “Romanian riot police fire tear…
The Babysitter
Big Chief, Big Daddy, Big Babysitter to the World If “winning hearts and minds” is at the top of your global campaign agenda for strategic communication, then you…
More Anthropology Bullshit
Anthropology is beyond parody these days. I don’t know if young anthropologists realise how silly they look – I assume they don’t, or they’d stop doing what…
More Anthropology Bullshit
Anthropology is beyond parody these days. I don’t know if young anthropologists realise how silly they look – I assume they don’t, or they’d stop doing what…
More Anthropology Bullshit
Anthropology is beyond parody these days. I don’t know if young anthropologists realise how silly they look – I assume they don’t, or they’d stop doing what…
Bare Feet
Encoding Poverty, Backwardness, and Dependency in US Military Imagery Bare feet. Ever since I was a small child, I have been made aware of how not wearing…
Nostalgia for a field Christmas
Image courtesy of shanzmataz. It’s the first time I’ve been away from Christmas in Trinidad since I started fieldwork there in 2011 (oh wait, I was home briefly…
What FoodAnthropology is Reading Now, December 20th Edition
December 20, 2015: Food Tank put together a list of their 15 favorite books from the last year, which includes sure-to-be-classics on agriculture, food politics, and food security: Food…
WhatsApp ban in Brazil: the word on the ground
The text above the image reads: ‘me without WhatsApp’. In this post Juliano Spyer suggests that the vocal backlash against the recent blocking of WhatsApp in…
The 30 Essential Books in Anthropology #CLASSIC
At the end of 2015 Allegra launched a virtual survey among junior and senior anthropologists in order to select the 30 essential books in anthropology, a list of…
Michael Kimmel, “Angry White Men: American Masculinity at the End of an Era”
Michael Kimmel View on Amazon Michael Kimmel is the Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies at Stony Brook University. He is also executive director of the Center…