anthro in the news 11/7/16
not all hair is equal BBC News reported on the research of social anthropologist Emma Tarlo tracing the global industry in human hair, especially wigs, weaves, and…
not all hair is equal BBC News reported on the research of social anthropologist Emma Tarlo tracing the global industry in human hair, especially wigs, weaves, and…
Today we continue our revisitation of 2016 via a review that has – sadly – only grown more topical since it was first published in October 2016: ‘The Borderlands…
Underlying the domain of human rights is the conception of the human on which we predicate, and advocate for, human rights’ recognition. But what are we actually lobbying…
This week we have two new reviews for you, tackling the question of #race (see our #callforreviews here): Tomorrow, our frequent and much cherished reviewer Gabriela Radulescu explores…
When the picture of Alan Kurdi’s drowned body first hit the headlines, it was instantly iconic. For many, the simple horror of the image suddenly made the refugee…
While Western political leaders overtly inflame followers by ascribing innate difference to Others, the lucidity and coherence of Marshall Sahlins’ 2013 monograph What Kinship Is – And Is…
The tile of the book itself informs its readers that it is an interrogation of women as class ‘subjects.’ Although studies of class are not new in Sociology,…
While gender remains a mostly female domain of inquiry, our list of recent publications features not only male authors, but also discusses contemporary masculinities. In What Makes a…
As stated on its back cover, in this book the influential French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002) investigates the state’s ‘extraordinary power of producing a socially ordered world without…
Review of Bourdieu, P. (2014). On the State: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1989-1992. P. Champagne, R. Lenoir, F. Poupeau, & M. C. Rivière (Eds.). London: Polity.…
On 22 March 2016, the Belgian city of Brussels suffered three calculated and co-ordinated terrorist attacks in the name of the so-called Islamic State. As with the Paris…
To what degree can our biological, genetic and reproductive systems be considered the basis for family relationships? Marshall Sahlins divides his answer to this question into two sections…
Dan Berger’s relationship with “America’s political prisoners” (xii) has been personal from the very beginning. At age sixteen and out of historical curiosity, Berger sought contact with black…
The second book by Gardner and Lewis, Anthropology and Development: Challenges for the Twenty-First Century, is both an update and a rewrite of their 1996 publication, Anthropology, Development…
Price, David H. 2016. Cold War Anthropology: The CIA, the Pentagon, and the Growth of Dual Use Anthropology. Duke University Press. A few years ago, I had a…
The Color of Modernity. São Paulo and the Making of Race and Nation in Brazil is an ambitious effort to rethink the formation of a regional identity and perceptions…
During my recent fieldwork in Myanmar, I fell in love with books allover again. Myanmar is a country where everyone reads all the time, and with pleasure. The…
I spend ages reading and summarising Bourdieu’s mammoth On the State (2014 [2012]) for a journal review – I was even congratulated by a stranger on a Melbourne…
Humanitarianism is a chimera, arguably an infection, but certainly an ethos and organising principle of our age that intersects with transformative moral-political modes of inquiry and praxis. This…
books and arts Lucas Bessire. 2014. Behold the Black Caiman: A Chronicle of Ayoreo Life. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. 296 pages. Dust In this poignant and…
There has, of late, been a loud and to some extent circular debate within the field of human rights studies. The debate is over whether or not one…
Seth Holmes’ ethnography Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies is a timely and innovative text blending theory and praxis. As a physician anthropologist, the author tries to better understand the…
21st century politics are marked by a focus on ‘life’ (cf. Fassin 2007). Governments, international organisations, and private companies, for instance, are showing their concern about survival through…
Anthropologists have been studying the various phenomena associated with states and ‘state-like’ structures for a long time (cf. Fortes 1940, Leach 1954). It was only in the last…