Robert Reich’s “Inequality for All”: A Documentary Review
Why is there growing inequality in wealth distribution in the US? Is inequality inevitable? If inequality is inevitable, can it be useful? Can inequality become a problem? If…
Why is there growing inequality in wealth distribution in the US? Is inequality inevitable? If inequality is inevitable, can it be useful? Can inequality become a problem? If…
by Mac Spencer We begin at one of this century’s most infamous ascents to celebrity status, which I assume needs little retelling. In 2007, a leaked sex tape…
This blog post is actually an announcement….I’ve started a new chapter and a new blog, and I am calling it “Consuming Culture”. Here is a sneak peak with…
Beaches are good places to think with about waste and ruination. They were once generically places of waste (in the etymological sense of “unoccupied, uncultivated”) while recognized as…
Can you engage in the present moment and let go of your other concerns while not engaged in a) an activity that demands all your attention (e.g. rock…
This review of a special issue of the Journal of Industrial Ecology titled, “Exploring the Circular Economy” is a virtual tour of circular economy definitions and current directions.…
In this Conversations episode of This Anthro Life, Adam Gamwell and guest host/TAL correspondent Matt Artz explore the world of Design Anthropology with the help of Dr. Elizabeth…
Over the past 100 years, visual artists probably deserve the most credit for thrift shopping’s place in the cultural milieu.
These are admirable initiatives, but they only reduce wastage or delay garments from ending up in landfill. They do not address the fact that the scale of fast…
Thinking with virtual data demonstrates that reduction of material waste alone does not mean a reduction of an overall environmental footprint on this planet.
By Peter Luetchford ** Reprinted from Review of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Studies Sarah Besky’s informative monograph on tea plantations in the northern Indian district of Darjeeling fills…
You know how a common criticism of politicians is that they’re out of touch with the real world? “Does your local representative know the price of a carton…
Our research into the issue of corporate social responsibility and wastage of fresh fruit and vegetables has identified a number of tensions and contradictions, despite leading Australian supermarkets…
Consumers, fed up with having to throw away broken phones, toasters and other appliances, are instead meeting to learn how to repair them and to extend the lifetime…
A walk down this little street in Peru’s capital provides a glimpse into an understated network that quietly plays a critical role in reducing the environmental impacts of…
One the one hand, hoarding is framed as a response to material deprivation. On the other, it is understood to result from the excesses of the late capitalist…
These are the lessons we have learned in efforts to salvage neglected information in the form of narrative fragments salvaged from the waste stream. Our working laboratory is…
Over 43 million gallons of milk has been dumped into manure pits and fields the first eight months of 2016. There is too much of it. Yet milk…
This entry is part 3 of 3 in the Anthropologies #22 series. For the third installment of the anthropologies food issue, we have an essay from William Cotter…
This special issue aims to present the best of ongoing interdisciplinary scholarship on historical and contemporary processes involved in the flow of secondhand objects and materials, their transforma…
Cargill, Kima. 2015. The Psychology of Overeating. Food and the Culture of Consumerism. London/New York: Bloomsbury Academic (216 pp). Julie Starr Hamilton College In The Psychology of Overeating…
In a new series of postings, we draw two research projects on miniatures together in dialogue: Miniatures Matter Jonathan Walz, Rollins College Jonathan Walz is an anthropologist who…
By Alex V. Barnard “Seeing all the waste exposes very clearly the priorities in our society, that making a profit is more important than feeding people, than preserving the…
Call it what you will: an anecdotal and impressionist narrative, or a set of strung-together fieldnotes, collected over years of living and working with people across class lines…