Best of SAPIENS 2024
Anthropologists from around the globe brought dazzling insights and deeply reported concerns to the digital pages of SAPIENS magazine. ✽ We are honored to have collaborated with dozens…
Anthropologists from around the globe brought dazzling insights and deeply reported concerns to the digital pages of SAPIENS magazine. ✽ We are honored to have collaborated with dozens…
An anthropologist takes a critical eye to a long-running holiday tradition: a U.S. military mission that drops toys and supplies throughout Micronesia. ✽ On a balmy December morning…
Black African women in former colonial centers such as London gesture to subversive ways of communicating with those imprisoned in archives across generations. ✽ despite the Maangamizi,( Maangamizi…
After five years of research and writing, I am pleased to announce that my first book is under contract with University of Texas Press. Peer reviews came back…
A 19th-century prophetess reportedly bore a serious message from the ancestors to her Xhosa people amid British colonial assault. The written archives judged her—but much still remains unknown…
An anthropologist who studies human-computer interactions explores how and why losing one’s smartphone feels so unsettling. ✽ David, an American cyborg, has lived in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil,…
A poet-historian reflects on women’s labor carrying memories and the past. ✽ memory is a washerwoman who knows that when the blood is poisoned, you have to slaughter…
In an effort to address toxic polarization in the U.S., an anthropologist of the “Trumpiverse” explains MAGA supporters’ thinking in the 2024 U.S. presidential election. This article was…
Thinking of returning to this problem of time – how everything has got more urgent, but nothing is moving at all – hyper-stagnation. From the reviews of Bad…
At Bears Ears National Monument in Utah, a new co-management plan brings together federal agencies and a consortium of Native American tribes—revealing deep tensions over land rights and…
A poet-anthropologist celebrates relatedness across difference in a poem that honors the festivals of Navratri, Durga Puja, Kali Puja, Day of the Dead, and Halloween—all of which draw…
Anthropologists and local activists in Indonesia and Peru uncover links between water scarcity and gendered violence, and work together to lessen the harms of gender inequality. ✽ In…
As toxic polarization deepens in the U.S., some global conflict prevention experts are now addressing political violence at home. An anthropologist shares three key insights from a community…
Anthropologist David Graeber’s celebrated theory of “bullshit jobs” continues to provide a critical window into why modern work is often so useless, soul-sucking, and absurd. This article was…
SAPIENS’ 2024 poet-in-residence conjures the voices of those imprisoned in archives. ✽ when the writing is done reference room locked index cards slotted library doors bolted when the…
An anthropologist who works with deaf communities in the Arabic-speaking Middle East argues that ending Israel’s war on Gaza and occupation of Palestine is a matter of disability…
The proposed Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary, along California’s Central Coast, would be the first of its kind in the U.S. to be nominated by Native peoples. ✽…
I was a guest on The Sausage of Science podcast with Dr. Chris Lynn, discussing my research. Listen below.
In a dystopian short story, an anthropologist imagines an alternate world in which Kashmiris are forbidden to dream. Republished by permission from English Language Notes, 61(2): 15–18. Copyright…
In a personal essay, a mixed-race and Native anthropologist draws strength from his ancestors. ✽ Who should I be today? I ask myself this question in the mirror…
Educators and students critical of Israel’s war on Gaza face censorship, harassment, and dismissal. An anthropologist who researches coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians argues such critics n…
After a 60-year haitus, an Attenborough’s long-beaked echidna was seen in Indonesia’s Cyclops Mountains. A poet-anthropologist reflects on the echidna’s message through the storied lens of the people…
An anthropologist reports on the impediments to labor organizing—and why it’s still worth trying. ✽ In the notoriously anti-union U.S. South, a Volkswagen plant unionized. After months of…
An anthropologist conducts research in an Arizona retirement community, where older women share hard-won insights about how limitations on sexual and reproductive freedom impacted their lives. ✽ Kan…