Sex, Lies, and Science Wars
The Mead-Freeman controversy reaches its climax. Scientists, scholars, and Samoans debate the nature of sexuality, culture, and truth. After anthropologist Derek Freeman publishes Margaret Mead and S…
Tag: Culture
American Anthropological Association 2023 Talk: Making Pigs Dirty: Conflicting Perspectives on Javelinas and Hogs in Texas
I co-chaired a panel at the 2023 meeting of the American Anthropological Association titled “The America Animal.” Abstract: Other-than-human animals comprise a large part of the so…
The Vibrant Worlds of Batuan Paintings in Bali
A new multimedia project connects the development of a Balinese regional painting style with anthropologists Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson, who began commissioning art in the region in…
Into the Light
Christianity and colonization deeply reshaped Samoan culture starting in the 1830s, complicating how anthropologists Margaret Mead and Derek Freeman saw the Pacific Islands. The first Christian missi…
Dismantling the Walls in Our Heads
The Berlin Wall fell more than three decades ago—but political, social, and economic divides between East and West Germany continue to reverberate, even among those born after Reunification.…
Trashing an American Icon
Anthropologist Derek Freeman became Margaret Mead’s biggest critic, trying to undo her research in American Samoa and her reputation as a famed anthropologist. Who was Derek Freeman, and…
We Need to Tell Our Own Stories
In the controversies swirling around Margaret Mead’s work in American Samoa, one set of voices has too often been left out: that of Samoans. Sparked by a provocative…
In Defense of Museums
In response to news of ethical violations by museums, a curator reflects on the past and future missions of such institutions. BAD NEWS ABOUT MUSEUMS Museums have been…
Flapper of the South Seas
A young anthropologist named Margaret Mead journeyed to American Samoa in 1925 and claimed she found a culture where teenagers were sexually free. Fame and controversy followed. In…
Coming of Age … Today
Does the transition from childhood to adulthood have to be so difficult? This question sent famed anthropologist Margaret Mead to American Samoa in 1925—and ignited decades of controversy.…
I Was Penalized for Learning a Language at Home
A researcher explains why the Fulbright-Hays fellowship should change its rules that have kept native and heritage speakers from working where their languages are spoken. ✽ Each year,…
The Problems With Coming of Age
A famed anthropologist’s controversial research in American Samoa reveals the biggest questions about growing up and being human. This special SAPIENS podcast season, co-hosted by Doris Tulifau and…
To Wear the Wind
A tribal scholar from the state of Nagaland in India engages with the loss of traditional cultural practices and locates the creation of a new world order where…
Raising My Children in an Ableist World
In a new book, an anthropologist and father of three, including a daughter with Down syndrome, reflects on the pressures of parenting. Excerpted from An Ordinary Future: Margaret…
Do Strict Criminal Penalties Protect Animals From Abuse?
In Mexico, a growing animal protection movement often promotes harsh criminal punishment for those who abuse animals. But are these strategies working, or do they lead to further…
Inside Mexico City’s Surveillance State
An anthropologist investigates how one city’s rapidly expanding video surveillance system is transforming criminal investigation—sometimes in deeply flawed ways. ✽ In September 2022, a criminal prose…
Rebuilding Community: Displaced Women and the Making of a Shia Ismaili Muslim Sociality – review
In Rebuilding Community: Displaced Women and the Making of a Shia Ismaili Muslim Sociality, Shenila Khoja-Moolji recounts how Ismaili women, displaced from East Pakistan and East Africa in the 1970s,…
Through Film, Discovering Hope in the Face of Environmental Destruction
In the midst of acute eco-anxiety, can community-based filmmaking help young people imagine a different future? FILMMAKING IN THE ANTHROPOCENE A group of 12-year-olds enters a decrepit building…
Nationalism in the Vernacular: Tribes, State and the Politics of Peace in Northeast India – review
In Nationalism in the Vernacular: Tribes, State and the Politics of Peace in Northeast India, Roluahpuia considers how oral culture has shaped the nationalist imagination of the Mizo, an indigenous po…
SAPIENS Is Going Viral
In early 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic struck humanity. The SAPIENS podcast explores anthropological insights into what this crisis taught humanity about our evolution, how we deal with abstract…
The SAPIENS Podcast Is Back
Why can eating insects be so gross? Who were the ancient Denisovans? How are dreams shaped by culture? Are people naturally generous? The SAPIENS podcast is back, exploring…
A Trailer for Everything Human
What makes you … you? Is it your DNA, culture, environment? SAPIENS hosts Esteban Gómez, Jen Shannon, and Chip Colwell speak with anthropologists from around the globe to…
How Eugenics Shaped the U.S. Prenatal Care System
Black women in the U.S. are far more likely to die from complications related to pregnancy and birth than White women. Two scholars explore how the discrediting of…
Bringing Nhakpoti, the Kayapó Story of Star Girl, to the Screen
Over years and across long distances, an international filmmaking team collaborated to bring to life the origin story of how agriculture came to Kayapó communities, Indigenous peoples in…