Why we can’t abolish “best”
In my email right now, there are 10,364 messages signed with American academia’s standard valediction: Best, I have always found best an incredibly alienating sign-off. So alienating that…
In my email right now, there are 10,364 messages signed with American academia’s standard valediction: Best, I have always found best an incredibly alienating sign-off. So alienating that…
What does making a new life look like from the perspective of a mobile phone? For the phone of a woman using the public health care system in…
I am delighted that anthropologists joined the debate unleashed by a story published in the Washington Post on 15 December 2017, in which health reporter Lena Sun and…
Words are more than their dictionary definitions. Amir Ridhwan/Shutterstock This article was originally published at The Conversation and has been republished under Creative Commons. The …
Imagine lying on a hospital bed. Doctors with grave expressions hover. One leans down to tell you that you are terribly sick and says they recommend a risky…
The small city of Hazard, Kentucky, rests in the heart of Appalachia. David Stephenson/Associated Press This article was originally published at The Conversation and has been republished …
Chimpanzees use alarm calls to inform each other of danger. Ronald Woan/Flickr A chimpanzee is strolling along a trail through the lush Budongo Forest in Uganda when he…
We’ve long been thinking about health, well-being, illness, sickness, and disease, in relation to risk. That things might not be maintained at their present levels, either individually, among…
8 Labels I Never Want to Hear Again There are several words that have gained in popularity over the last few years that I don’t ever want to…
Why do images matter? How is it that these assemblages of pixels and ink come to shape not only our own view of ourselves, but also of the…
Cocina, música y comunicación: Tecnologías y estética en el Yucatán contemporáneo, de Steffan Igor Ayora Diaz, Gabriela Vargas Cetina y Francisco Javier Fernández Repetto (UADY / CONACYT 2017) Mar…
Earlier this month, I was very fortunate to be interviewed by the BBC on my research onto the use of technology in China. The article that was published…
Advocacy anthropology does not always mean aligning oneself with an underdog. Nicolas Raymond/Flickr (CC BY 2.0) Since the establishment of our discipline, anthropologists have fretted over the questi…
Grappling with Ethnography and Advocacy in the Field What follows is a transcribed conversation between the authors. It has been edited for length and clarity. iStock Haley Bryant:…
Welcome. Come in, please. May I take your coat? If you don’t mind removing your shoes you can place them there. Would you like something to drink? Have…
I sometimes like to joke that anthropologists looking for the strangest and most exotic society on earth should do fieldwork in the United States. As if to prove…
Time. Astronomers, philosophers, physicists, anthropologists, politicians, geographers, and theologians have all pondered the nature and meaning of time. Is it linear or cyclical? Is it reversible? (P…
An education in anthropology encourages us to look beyond cultural assumptions. In the days following the results of the US presidential election, there has allegedly been a wave…
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, mobile phones are being used in many different ways for many different reasons—from oppression to liberation. PAPY MULONGO/AFP/Getty Images Today …
On a recent Saturday, I took my three boys camping along the Cache la Poudre River, one of the most picturesque watersheds in all of northern Colorado. Its…
About half of the world’s languages are expected to disappear by 2100 if nothing is done to stop their decline. To counteract this trend, some tribes are using…
This is one of the memes circulating among low income Brazilians in reference to the impeachment of President Dilma. The top comment says: “Gosh, is this true?” Below…
Social media platforms can be used to perpetuate the trafficking of animals and animal products such as bear bile, which is commonly harvested from Asiatic black bears. Lee…
In Yogyakarta, one of Indonesia’s culturally rich cities, lies Kampoeng Cyber, or “Cyber Village”—a community that caught the attention of Mark Zuckerberg (right), the co-founder of Facebook, for…