The Personhood and Rights of Apes
I spent the earliest part of my career as an anthropologist studying captive chimpanzees at the North Carolina Zoo in Asheboro, NC. While there, I always made a…
Tag: Blog
The Life of Viktor (An Easter Folktale from Central Europe)
Editorial note: This text was submitted by a colleague who wishes to remain anonymous; he has informed us that “this version of Viktor’s tale has been embellished in…
The Facebook Data Scandal and Why Anthropology Should get More Comfortable with Journalism
There’s anthropological spirit in investigative journalism that anthropologists could better acknowledge. Regardless of whether it has a anthropology qualification attached or it is embedded in comple…
Focaal Volume 2018, Issue 80: The political in/of Europe
We are pleased to announce that the latest issue of Focaal – Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology has recently published and is available online at its new home, www.berghahnjournals.com/foc…
Anthrocasts: When communities speak, listen and learn
Online ethnography, where researchers may never share a physical space with the participants in their research, is finding its methodological feet. Combine that with an analysis of these…
The Revolution that Wasn’t (Yet): Reflections on Iran’s protests two months out
I still remember vividly the words of an informant who, when asking him about his vision of a freer Iran, responded adamantly, “we don’t need more freedom, what…
Research Moving Forward: The Social Construction of Down syndrome
I’m at the point where I’m beginning to plan out my next research project. I’m finishing up work on one manuscript (Genocolonization) and writing another with my partner…
Why #MeToo Is Complicated for Female Anthropologists
How do we ensure that the #metoo movements reach beyond both Hollywood’s red carpets and academia’s Ivory Towers, to areas where a shake-up is arguably most needed? How…
Marc Edelman: Sacrifice zones in rural and nonmetro USA: Fertile soil for authoritarian populism
Sacrifice zones—abandoned, economically shattered places, with growing social and health problems—are spreading in historically white rural areas and small towns across the United States. Rural declin…
Anthropological Reflections on a Family Death
Comparing my own experiences of death to those of the Tiwi culture that I learned of in my anthropology studies, the void that I felt in the months…
David Graeber: Manufactured ignorance: The strange case of Juan Cole and the Kurdish Freedom Movement, and the International Liberal Intelligentsia
This is a story about how a well-meaning liberal American professor can end up becoming an active propagandist for right-wing forces attempting to destroy a feminist revolution. •…
Conference Transcript: “Slipping Into Darkness: Recruiting and Student Understanding of Anthropology as a Field and Major”
This is the transcript for the talk I gave at Skeletal Biology in the Carolina conference. You can see the PPT here: Slipping into Darkness Slide 1 Introduction Slide…
Heike Becker: “Global 1968” on the African continent
Fifty years after student protests shook much of the Cold War world, in the “West” and in the “East,” “Global 1968” has become the catchphrase to describe these…
Invisible Lines, Sacrificial Children and Touchy Subjects: Ethics in Psychiatric Anthropology
As I now write up my data, I’m representing people that I can no longer consult. I can only draw on the words they gave me and the…
Living and F*cking with Acronyms: A response to Dennis Altman’s call to rethink LGBTI
Last week Australian academic Dennis Altman published a provocative piece in The Conversation, suggesting that it was time to re think the label LGBTI. In the place of…
Why YOU Should Be an Academic Cyborg (and Maybe Already Are)
Although I’ve often been heard to sigh and groan that “technology hates me”, just like any other self-respecting anthropologist, in this post I want to consider just what…
Quinn Slobodian: Against the neoliberalism taboo
Daniel Rodgers has written the latest would-be obituary for neoliberalism as a category of analysis, hot off the press in the first 2018 issue of Dissent magazine. Like…
The Price of Eggs: Iran’s protests beyond democracy and capitalism
As the dust settles on Iran’s recent bout of protests, the surge of commentary, punditry, and analysis is likely to continue, no longer working to explain these apparently…
Annual Health Check?
“That will be next year’s project”, say many of us. “By then, I’ll be ready for it”, we might add. These kinds of statements also featured in several conversations…
NDNHISTORYRESEARCH End of the Year 2017 Wrap
This year, 2017, has shown a lot of growth after the 2016 breakout year, capping two years of amazing histories being written, and an awesome response from my…
David Hamou and Ida Susser: Where to Catalonia?: Is this commoning? What for independence?
As we sit here in Barcelona, a historic center of anarchism and left resistance, the questions debated in the most recent Focaal special section “Exploring the urban commons” confront us.…
Focaal Volume 2017, Issue 79: Exploring the urban commons
We are pleased to announce that the latest issue of Focaal – Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology has recently published and is available online at its new home, www.berghahnjournals.com/foc…
Mahmudul H Sumon: An anonymous visit to a garment factory in Bangladesh
After the Tazreen Fashions factory fire (2012) and the Rana Plaza collapse (2013), which killed 119 and 1,136 workers, respectively, the garment sector of Bangladesh has seen the…
Jeremy Morris: Cheesed off, but not because of sanctions: Russians adapt to immiseration as global capital increases its grip
With the constant, confusing, and often misinformed media noise around Russia, you would be forgiven for believing a number of unhelpfully distorting half-truths: that Russia has been a…