New Preface to Globalization from Below: The World’s Other Economy by Keith Hart
IV. The informal economy has taken over the World The idea of an informal economy was born in the 1970s when the post-war era of developmental states was…
Tag: cultural anthropology
What Anthropology Teaches Us about COVID, Part 3: A Few Thoughts about Culture, and What We Can Learn from Artists . . . and the Homeless
What is “culture”? Early generations of anthropologists offered all sorts of definitions. No matter what their specifics, the various definitions inevitably shared one feature: “…
Getting a Fake Shaligram, Intentionally
So, I got a fake Shaligram. But don’t be indignant on my behalf, it was on purpose. One of the most pervasive fears many Shaligram devotees (or would-be…
Pandemics: agents of global change
It was the early 1990s, while working at the American College of Physicians in Philadelphia, I became interested in epidemiology. With all the doctors around (there were twelve…
What Anthropology Teaches Us about COVID-19, Part 2: An Optimist’s Scenario
Here’s what I imagine could–and should–emerge from this viral nightmare. Locally, stranger-neighbors will (re)discover each other. Re-appreciate the bonds of co-residence. …
Cultural Critique: Anthropological – by Keith Hart
Cultural Critique Cultural critique, the use of anthropology to draw critical attention to institutions that readers take for granted, is as old as the origins of the modern…
The Subjugation of Liberal Democracy
Are we witnessing in our lifetime the slow destruction of liberal democracy? Have we exhausted the limits of a political system that has served nations for more than…
Religious Colonizing in Brazil
After Bolsonaro was elected President of Brazil, I sort of lost the desire to write anything more about the country. As a gringo living in Brazil for more…
Shaligram Interpretive Practices: The Vasudev Shaligram Example
One thing I love about Shaligram interpretive practices is how extensively narrative they are. As in, not only does each specific ammonite fossil invoke stories about the geological…
The Collapse of Societies
By now, the entire world is aware of the historic and unprecedented events occurring in the United States. It seems trite to characterize these events as…
A Shaligram is Born – Part 2
This second part on the birth of Shaligrams is meant to briefly demonstrate the concrete links between the sacred contexts of Shaligram veneration and the actual practices devotees…
A Shaligram is Born – Part 1
Witnessing the appearance of a Shaligram stone within the Kali Gandaki river is to, quite literally, witness its birth. Formed in the womb of the mountains (the Himalayas)…
Agriculture in Human Evolution – by Keith Hart
In his Discourse on the Origins and Foundations of Inequality among Men (1754) Jean-Jacques Rousseau was concerned, not with individual variations in natural endowments, but with…
Wedding Clothes and the Osage Community: A Giving Heritage
It is a great moment for a great project. Some Shreds and Patches readers will remember when, in 2017, the Mathers Museum of World Cultures hosted the special…
Interrogating the Concept of Categories – an Interview with Lochlann Jain
Stanford University anthropologist and artist, Lochlann Jain, speaks with Anne Brackenbury (former editor at University of Toronto Press who launched the ethnoGRAPHIC Series) to talk about Jain’s new…
The Political Economy of Food in an Unequal World-by Keith Hart
Food in a New Economic Order What is ‘new’ about neo-liberalism? It is a world economic order based on selective freedom, on the freedom of money…
Filtered Realities
In order to proceed, we must first acknowledge the more than three decades of work by a man who has been sounding the alarm concerning the…
What Students Deserve in a Textbook
With the recent release of Through the Lens of Cultural Anthropology, we asked author Laura Tubelle de González to talk about her new textbook, and her hopes for…
The Blueberry Wars
In elementary school, the first “robin red-breast” of spring signaled warmer days, colorful flowers, and a promise that the school year wouldn’t last forever. I considered robins m…
The Mueller Report: Highlights
The Mueller Report is probably one of the most extensive legal investigations in the history of the United States. Certainly, the circumstances necessitating it are historic…
Neo-Evolutionism with special emphasis on Steward and White
Contents Background: Revivals: Julian Steward: Leslie White: Background: The “golden age” of social evolutionism had basically ended by the 1890s, and after that time a sharp reaction against…
The Horror of War – Part 3
Sometime in June 1971, an incident occurred that completely changed my attitude toward the US Army. In fact, I was never the same again. It all…
Goose Lessons
What can an anthropologist (who specializes in humans) learn from an unlikely species (like a goose)? Plenty, it turns out. My husband and I went goose-banding the other day,…