Difficult Truths: Confronting Irish Industrial Schools
This article was originally published at Otherwise magazine and has been republished with permission as a lightly edited excerpt. CONSTELLATIONS The 1918 Spanish flu altered the course of…
Tag: Culture
Did Margaret Mead Think a Healed Femur Was the Earliest Sign of Civilization?
According to a commonly shared story, the anthropologist Margaret Mead was supposedly asked by a student what she thought was the earliest sign of a civilized society. There…
Did Margaret Mead Think a Healed Femur Was the Earliest Sign of Civilization?
An anthropologist digs into the origins of a popular story attributed to Margaret Mead about the original sign of civilization. ✽ According to a commonly shared story, the…
Understanding the Shaman’s Tribulations
Understanding the Shaman’s Tribulations – By Taba Menia – The scholarship of shamanism is closely related to ideas about traditional healing and their knowledge. Found across the world…
Living With the Prospect of Assisted Dying
Excerpted from The Day I Die: The Untold Story of Assisted Dying in America by Anita Hannig. © 2022 by Anita Hannig. Used with permission of the publisher,…
Living With the Prospect of Assisted Dying
[no-caption] The Real Tokyo Life/Getty Images Excerpted from The Day I Die: The Untold Story of Assisted Dying in America by Anita Hannig. © 2022 by Anita Hannig.…
Is Donated Blood a Gift or a Commodity?
An anthropologist dives into the morally fraught blood and plasma industry and what it reveals about human societies—the good, the bad, and the gory. ✽ In the spring…
Is Donated Blood a Gift or a Commodity?
In 1950, human blood was stored for patient use at a U.S. Mobile Army Surgical Hospital in Korea. U.S. National Archives and Records Administration/Wikimedia Commons In the spring…
Maize and Okra
I saw big momma once, seated in a wooden chair with hair braided all the way like if you look downriver, you could imagine the chillin’ playing— after…
Crystal Worl’s Countermural Tells a Different History of Alaska
Her dark gray eyes scan the horizon. An iridescent golden sun and stars encircle her head, flanked on one side by a cobalt sockeye salmon and the other…
Ep # 92 Emergency Contraceptives & Hymenoplasty: Lisa Wynn on Sexual & Reproductive Health Tech
The Familiar Strange · Ep # 92 Emergency Contraceptives & Hymenoplasty: Lisa Wynn on Sexual & Reproductive Health Tech This podcast contains themes or topics that may be…
The Same Old Song and Dance: Nothing Has Been Done to Reduce Mass Shootings
We are only a few days removed from the horrific mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, TX where nearly two dozen people were murdered in cold…
Indigenous Mapmaking, or Bringing a Dead Map to Life
Two Indigenous Marind clan representatives peruse a map of their customary territories produced by local village members. Sophie Chao Excerpted from In the Shadow of the Palms: More-Than-…
We Should Talk More About the Abortion Pill
In May 2018, activists took abortion pills as part of a protest against anti-abortion laws in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Many were dressed as characters from The Handmaid’s Tale,…
Haunted by a Secret War
In Old Sepon in Savannakhet province, Laos, a temple wall riddled with bullet holes and shrapnel scars hints at war’s remains. Leah Zani Excerpted from Strike Patterns: Notes…
Disaster anthropology talk 17 May: The role of culture in crisis:
collectivism and individualism in the coastal fishing after 2011 Japan Earthquake and Tsunami This was once Arahama – the vibrant fishing suburb of Sendai, right by the coast.…
Unmasked: Illustrating COVID-19 in Okoboji
[no-caption] Aaron Gronstal These illustrations tell the story of the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic in a small tourist town in the Iowa Great Lakes region: my…
Nurturing Autism Acceptance in Indonesia
Idris (right), a teenager on the autism spectrum, visits a local mosque in Indonesia to pray with his father. Elemental Productions On a typical day, Wawan, a teenager…
What Do Anthropologists Do?
A person documents a centuries-old Basque carnival in Alsasua, Spain. Many anthropologists investigate cultural phenomena, such as rituals and religious traditions. NurPhoto/Getty Images …
The Cosmic Serpent
Most Carnival celebrations in Brazil have been canceled again in 2022 due to the resurgence of COVID-19, though larger cities like Rio and São Paulo are holding scaled-down…
The Ukrainian Refugee Crisis’ Double Standard
Watching the war unfold in Ukraine due to the recent Russian invasion, I, like many others, have been gripped by heartbreaking images of refugees arriving to the borders…
What Kenya’s Killer Cops Reveal About Police Culture
On July 7, 2021, Nairobi residents marched to protest police brutality and harassment, particularly against poor people. The date also commemorates demonstrations against authoritarian rule that …
Transracial Adoption and the Limits of Love
A photo installation by artist Glenn Morey explores how Korean adoptees in the U.S. grapple with questions related to belonging, identity, and family. Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Images On a…