Earlier I Had Nightmares, Now I Have Insomnia
A Kashmiri poet-anthropologist records the restless despair many feel under Indian occupation. If you missed the introduction to “Earlier I Had Nightmares, Now I Have Insomnia,” you can…
Tag: colonialism
A Long Road Ahead
SAPIENS’ 2023 poet-in-residence questions where peace of mind can come from for Indian-occupied Kashmir. If you missed the introduction to “A Long Road Ahead,” you can find it…
This Militarization
A poet-anthropologist conveys her life when she was coming of age under the increasing mobilization of military forces in Indian-occupied Kashmir. If you missed the introduction to “This…
Documenting the Kashmir Conflict Through Poetry
SAPIENS’ 2023 poet-in-residence sketches the history she speaks to in three poems from Indian-occupied Kashmir. “Speak up for your lips are not sealed, and your words are still…
Scientists In Support of Palestine
We will not be silent in the face of the ongoing genocide of Palestinians, and we hope we will see a free Palestine in our lifetimes. As scientists…
Scientists In Support of Palestine
We will not be silent in the face of the ongoing genocide of Palestinians, and we hope we will see a free Palestine in our lifetimes. As scientists…
Anthropologists on Palestine
Amid the war on Gaza and long before, anthropologists have been speaking out against Israel’s occupation of Palestine. Here’s a curated list of their perspectives as scholars and…
Can We Understand One Another?
The Mead-Freeman controversy draws to a close, with some answers to who was right and who was wrong. But, in the end, can anyone ever really understand cultures…
Weaving Stories: Two Women Speak
Author and poet Sia Figiel and activist and anthropologist Doris Tulifau share their stories of being Samoan women. They also discuss the violence and challenges they’ve faced and…
Sex, Lies, and Science Wars
The Mead-Freeman controversy reaches its climax. Scientists, scholars, and Samoans debate the nature of sexuality, culture, and truth. After anthropologist Derek Freeman publishes Margaret Mead and S…
Into the Light
Christianity and colonization deeply reshaped Samoan culture starting in the 1830s, complicating how anthropologists Margaret Mead and Derek Freeman saw the Pacific Islands. The first Christian missi…
Trashing an American Icon
Anthropologist Derek Freeman became Margaret Mead’s biggest critic, trying to undo her research in American Samoa and her reputation as a famed anthropologist. Who was Derek Freeman, and…
Júlia Fernandez: Outside of Humanity: Palestinian Children and the Value of Life
The algorithm swiftly gets it –yes, I am sucked in by news about Gaza- and collapses my social media platforms’ feeds into a monothematic thread that mirrors my…
We Need to Tell Our Own Stories
In the controversies swirling around Margaret Mead’s work in American Samoa, one set of voices has too often been left out: that of Samoans. Sparked by a provocative…
I Was Penalized for Learning a Language at Home
A researcher explains why the Fulbright-Hays fellowship should change its rules that have kept native and heritage speakers from working where their languages are spoken. ✽ Each year,…
To Wear the Wind
A tribal scholar from the state of Nagaland in India engages with the loss of traditional cultural practices and locates the creation of a new world order where…
Archaeological Tropes That Perpetuate Colonialism
Two Indigenous archaeologists from the U.S. Southwest shed light on how “abandonment” and other common archaeological terms continue to cause harm. They offer insights into how to rewrite…
Nationalism in the Vernacular: Tribes, State and the Politics of Peace in Northeast India – review
In Nationalism in the Vernacular: Tribes, State and the Politics of Peace in Northeast India, Roluahpuia considers how oral culture has shaped the nationalist imagination of the Mizo, an indigenous po…
Imagining Other Worlds at the India-Pakistan Border
For decades, soldiers at the border between Attari, India, and Wagah, Pakistan, have staged an elaborate ceremony for onlookers. An anthropologist reflects on the ceremony as a legacy…
Who wants to go to Essex? A walk in Rochford town and by the River Roach
My title is a paraphrase of Margaret Thatcher’s dissing of Hackney, but prejudice against Essex is knee-jerk amongst loads of middle class folks who didn’t like her. Much…
Cold Hubris and Fundo
A poet-historian reflects on the legacy of colonial-era collecting practices in Tanzania that tore Black Indigenous ancestors from their communities and history. ✽ Euro-American colonial collections o…
Mitchell Esajas, Jessica de Abreu, and the public recognition of the Dutch role in slavery
By Freek Colombijn, Marina de Regt and Marjo de Theije – In the run-up to Keti Koti, the annual commemoration of the formal abolishment of slavery in Suriname…
Summer anthropologies #1: The Nameless Summer
Publicity photo from the making of The Endless Summer. Photographer unknown. Public Domain. Bruce Brown’s mid 1960’s surf epic The Endless Summer is one of the key elements…
Markus Balkenhol: Apologizing for slavery: notes on a Dutch surprise
On 1 July 2021, 148 years after slavery ended in the Dutch West Indian colonies, Femke Halsema, the Mayor of Amsterdam, said: ‘For the active involvement of the…