#BookSymposium: Tasting Qualities
Sarah Besky’s ethnographically and historically rich study of the Indian tea industry begins with a deceptively simple question: what makes a good cup of tea? The answer, it…
Tag: colonialism
#BookSymposium: Tasting Qualities
As I write this, in the uncertain and tumultuous times of early June 2020, there is a storm brewing in the world of British tea drinkers. On June…
Ep#65 The Social Dilemma, Corpo-Humans, Buying Nothing & Localised Colonialism: This Month on TFS
This week we bring you a panel with Anthea Snowsill who is currently doing her research with the Intha people of Myanmar. In this panel We’d also introduce…
Comparing Comparisons: From the “Historikerstreit” to the Mbembe Affair
In the late 1980s, mostly German intellectuals discussed the question of the “uniqueness” or “comparability” of the Holocaust. In the Cause Mbembe, the fronts, the participants and the…
Talking about Elections in Northern Kenya
An anthropologist recalls a conversation with three older women as they reflected on their experiences of electoral politics past and present. “What politics have people of nowadays seen;…
On Taking Credit: Textile Traditions and Fashion Rip-Offs
Below find a guest post by Carrie Hertz, Curator of Dress and Textiles at the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA. –Jason Baird…
In the Journals – Conflict and Captivity
POW release to UN authorities was the first step in repatriation. Here, communists turn over UN troops at the POW receiving center at Panmunjon, on the border of…
On the social nature of toilet paper
You would be forgiven for thinking that the first thing bought in a global crisis would be tinned, dried, and frozen foods; clean water; and medicines—things that enable…
Destination Anthropocene: An Interview with Amelia Moore
Destination Anthropocene: Science and Tourism in The Bahamas By Amelia Moore, University of Rhode Island 216pp. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press § Colin Hoag spoke with Prof.…
Confronting the Colonial Legacies of Museum Collections
Berlin’s Humboldt Forum opened its doors to the public for a special event in 2019, even as construction on the building continued. David von Becker/SHF Art historian Bénédicte…
“The Measles from the Time of My Grandfather”: Amazonian Ethnocide Memories in Times of Covid-19 by Carlos Fausto
“Kanari Kuikuro shows me a pot full of winged leafcutter ants he has just collected”. November, 2002. Xingu Indigenous Land, Brazil. Photo by Carlos Fausto Two weeks ago,…
“Make Space Great Again”
Nostalgic Amnesia on the Final Frontier (Center) Kanye West meeting with Donald Trump, Ivanka Trump, and Jared Kushner, (Ends) Logos for Starfleet Command and the Space Force While delivering a…
Europe’s Other Walls
The Berlin Wall has always had multiple lives. Beyond its fall lies a story of proliferating borders and exclusions. “Berlin is not the same without a Wall,” said…
Clapperton Chakanetsa Mavhunga’s The Mobile Workshop: The Tsetse Fly and African Knowledge Production by Rosie Sims
The Mobile Workshop: The Tsetse Fly and African Knowledge Production. Clapperton Chakanetsa Mavhunga MIT Press, 2018. 412 pages. Clapperton Chakanetsa Mavhunga’s latest book, The…
Other People’s Clutter
perhaps the most perplexing item she had kept from her time was the empty casing of an artillery shell from World War Two. She told me that many…
Notes on a Postcard
The exhibition The World Exists To Be Put on A Postcard has been running at the British Museum throughout the summer. It is an apt location for any…
India’s Third Gender Rises Again
Laxmi Narayan Tripathi, high priestess of a convent of hijras, takes selfies with admirers at India’s 2019 Kumbh Mela religious festival. Ina Goel Laxmi Narayan Tripathi sat on…
Book Review: Archaeogaming and the Wide Wonderful World of Archaeology in Video Games
By Alissa Whitmore Reinhard, Andrew (2018) Archaeogaming: An Introduction to Archaeology in and of Video Games. New York: Berghahn Books. Originally trained in classical archaeology, Andrew Reinhard …
The Colour of Coffee: Racism, Gender and Coffee Consumption in 19th Century Algeria
Today, coffee is consumed everywhere in the world. Despite its neo-colonial forms of production, it is a drink which brings people together, but the consumption of coffee in…
Language Lessons
A documentary film shows the challenges faced by Soli children as they learn in a language that is not their own. But does the future have to be…
Indigenous Survival Politics in the Promotion of a National Discourse
In January 2018, 10 members from an Ainu traditional performance group, Sapporo Upopo Hozonkai (Sapporo Upopo Preservation Society, hereafter SUH), traveled from Sapporo, the capital city of Hokkaido…
Rohan Deb Roy’s Malarial Subjects: Empire, Medicine and Nonhumans in British India, 1820–1909 by Townsend Middleton
Malarial Subjects: Empire, Medicine and Nonhumans in British India, 1820–1909. (Open Access). Rohan Deb Roy Cambridge University Press, 2017. 332 pages. Malaria has long garnered no sho…
Decolonizing Extinction: An Interview with Juno Salazar Parreñas
Decolonizing Extinction: The Work of Care in Orangutan Rehabilitation By Juno Salazar Parreñas, The Ohio State University 288pp. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. § Colin Hoag spoke with…