Purple in Cycles
A poet-anthropologist speaks to the labyrinthine experiences of domestic violence—the entrapment, the hope for freedom. ✽ During the final week of domestic violence awareness month in October, I…
Tag: Culture
Centering the Voices of Victims and Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse
In England and Wales, a multiyear investigation has uncovered decades of pervasive child sexual abuse in schools, churches, and other institutions. An anthropologist on the project weighs in…
What Cargo Cult Rituals Reveal About Human Nature
In Melanesia, Indigenous communities developed elaborate rituals to bring themselves material wealth starting in the late 19th century. These practices reveal a profoundly important and universal soci…
Unsung Native Collaborators in Anthropology
Anthropologists such as Franz Boas and Margaret Mead could not have achieved success without their local assistants’ insider knowledge and extensive labor. ✽ Growing up a Brown girl…
What Happens if Chinese Smartphones Teach English Lessons in Tanzania?
English is the dominant global language of the world, it is the language of power, and control. But it is not the only language, and different people have…
Derogatory Place Names Need Indigenous Revision
Changing offensive place names on public lands is a strong move toward decolonization. But to heal relationships and address ecological crises, non-Native people must do more. ✽ On…
Confronting Xenophobia Through Food—and Comics
An anthropologist who migrated from India to the U.K. uses his research to illustrate how fellow migrants from India maintain cultural heritage through hard-to-find ingredients. ✽ Before I…
What Is Cultural Anthropology?
Cultural anthropologists seek to understand the dizzyingly diverse ways people live today, including how they think, act, create, struggle, make meaning, and organize their societies. WHAT IS CULTURAL…
In Spain, Scapegoating Spikes During the Pandemic
An anthropologist and a Rroma activist investigate the rise in prejudice and abuse toward Rroma people during the COVID-19 crisis. ✽ During the first wave of the pandemic,…
Does “Monkeypox” Give Monkeys a Bad Name?
The debate over naming the virus known as monkeypox says a lot about the close—but fraught—relationships between humans and our fellow primates. ✽ The name of the latest…
Are Insomniacs Overthinking Sleep?
From WiFi-enabled sleep trackers to wearable brain-altering apps, sleep technology is becoming increasingly sophisticated. But is the antidote to insomnia far more ancient? ✽ You will likely spend…
When Women Answer the Call of Duty
From Syria to Ukraine, the sight of women taking up arms to fight for a cause calls audiences to attention. Why? ✽ In 2019, the video game Call…
What Is Freedom in a Brazilian Favela?
In a new book, Minoritarian Liberalism, an anthropologist explores how favela residents of Rio de Janeiro create their own versions of liberty—even under conditions of violence, poverty, and…
What’s Behind the Backlash to Lightyear’s Animated Kiss?
What do Twitter debates over Disney-Pixar’s recent family film tell us about today’s parenting politics in the U.S.? ✽ On June 17, Walt Disney Pictures and Pixar Animation…
What Is Anthropological Poetry?
SAPIENS’ poetry editor and inaugural poet-in-residence break down what makes certain poems anthropological and explore how poetry has the potential to transform ways of thinking and being in…
Peeling Back the Myth of a “White” Midwest
The popular image of the U.S. heartland as only a place of rural, hardworking white farmers has always been a larger-than-life myth. In a new book, Imagining the…
Why Do (Some) Humans Love Chili Peppers?
An anthropologist traces the origins and world travels of one of his favorite kinds of plants. ✽ As someone who grew up in the Philippines, I have always…
We All Love Roses
SAPIENS Poet-in-Residence Jason Vasser-Elong reflects on horrific cycles of violence—and highlights injustices that are often papered over. We All Love Roses – Listen Some say it’s human nature…
How a Coerced Confession Shaped a Family History
A researcher delves into her family’s oral history and local archives to tell the story of a relative—falsely accused as a boy of a crime in Jim Crow–era…
Wisdom From the Winding Path
An anthropologist dreams of his work with Songhay sorcerers in Niger and of French poet Edmond Jabès, fictionalizing conversations and experiences to polish nuggets of wisdom for our…
Wisdom From the Winding Path
[no caption] Frans Lemmens/Getty Images Excerpted from Paul Stoller’s essay “Jabès Amongst Songhay Sorcerers” in Philosophy on Fieldwork: Case Studies in Anthropological Analysis, e…
Looking Into the World of Frog Gigging
Frog hunters, known as “giggers,” search for bullfrogs in southern Indiana. Saish Solankar The moon emerged out of the clouds at a few minutes past midnight, reflecting on…
Looking Into the World of Frog Gigging
The moon emerged out of the clouds at a few minutes past midnight, reflecting on the murky water of a forest pond. I watched as Wyatt*, the organizer…
Difficult Truths: Confronting Irish Industrial Schools
[no-caption] Matt Anderson Photography/Getty Images This article was originally published at Otherwise magazine and has been republished with permission as a lightly edited excerpt. CONST…