Five New Year’s Rituals of Renewal
In Auckland, New Zealand, Māori people celebrate the rising of Mataraki, also known as the Pleiades star cluster, as the start of the new year in July. Hannah…
Tag: Culture
Head of a Maiden
My poem “Head of a Maiden” is my response to the recent New York Times article “Looking for a Stolen Idol? Visit the Museum of the Manhattan D.A.”…
When Carbon Credits Drive People From Their Homes
A sign inside the Alto Mayo Protected Forest promotes “conservation agreements that change lives,” including ecotourism and sustainable coffee. Blanca Begert The Mayo River begins in the …
The Emotional Logic of a Black Poetics: Truth, Metaphor, Beauty, Joy
In this free live event, Poetry Editor Christine Weeber and SAPIENS Public Anthropology Fellow Eshe Lewis will speak with Justin D. Wright, a doctoral student in sociocultural anthropology…
The Age of Digital Divination
Divination rituals around the world often include animals, as seen in this early 20th-century painting of fortunetelling using a chicken by Russian artist Konstantin Makovsky. Brandmeister/Wi…
What Netflix Got Wrong About Indigenous Storytelling
An Indigenous Pantaron Manobo man sports a pendant necklace imbued with sacred power. Andrea Malaya M. Ragragio Within days of its release last June, the Netflix animated series…
I Carry My Grief With Me, but I Also Carry My Joy
When you lose someone the future dies. Or, at least, the one with them, that you thought about with them, in it. I imagine any relationship that ends…
Do Things Have to Be This Way?
[no-caption] Henrik Sorensen/Getty Images Excerpted from The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity. © 2021 by David Graeber and David Wengrow. Reprinted with permission from Farra…
Lessons We Learn
“Lessons We Learn” is part of the collection Lead Me to Life: Voices of the African Diaspora. Read the introduction to the collection here. The past flashes like…
What Industrial Societies Get Wrong About Childhood
[no-caption] ER Productions Limited Each year across the world, kids of roughly the same age are packed into classrooms and confined to desks with the intent of learning…
Surfing in Color
“Surfing in Color” is part of the collection Lead Me to Life: Voices of the African Diaspora. Read the introduction to the collection here. Floating, my gaze and…
On Chicken Soup and Justice
The author’s matzoh ball soup. Photo courtesy of the author, all rights reserved. Editor’s Note: This is part of a series of postings by students in a graduate…
The Sisters of Loretto Share a Kinship With the Earth
The Sisters of Loretto, a women’s religious community, prioritize environmental stewardship at their working farm in rural Kentucky. Cody Rakes This month, global delegates have been gath…
Mourning Kin After the End of Cannibalism
Clockwise from top left: (1) Indigenous Wari’ dwellings in Amazonia, Brazil. (2) The author (middle) with her adopted father, Paletó (right), in 2012. (3) The author interviewing Wari’…
“Of Peccaries and People: Perception and Politics in the Texas Hill Country” RAI Anthropology and Conservation Conference Talk 2021
On October 27, I presented some of my preliminary research at the Royal Anthropological Institute’s 2021 Anthropology and Conservation conference at the “Living with Diversity in a More-t…
Riot
“The Voice of Diaspora” is part of the collection Lead Me to Life: Voices of the African Diaspora. Read the introduction to the collection here. Her arm is…
We All Live on Permafrost
Indigenous Sakha communities in Siberia raise a rare native horse breed that can survive the extreme cold. Susan Alexandra Crate One of the most distinct memories from my…
The Voice of Diaspora
“The Voice of Diaspora” is part of the collection Lead Me to Life: Voices of the African Diaspora. Read the introduction to the collection here. I wake…
How People Actually Use Their Smartphones
[no-caption] John Cei Douglas In 2022, the smartphone, first introduced by IBM, will celebrate its 30th birthday. Most of us now use a smartphone every day—whether we like…
Adapt or Abandon? Hard Choices in the Himalayas
The Loba tribespeople living in the village of Dhe in Nepal are increasingly abandoning their homes as climate change transforms the landscape. Taylor Weidman/LightRocket/Getty Images On …
Window
“Window” is part of the collection Lead Me to Life: Voices of the African Diaspora. Read the introduction to the collection here. I. Finding myself lost in…
Preserving Black Women’s Stories as a Labor of Love
Irma McClaurin holds up her first book, Women of Belize: Gender and Change in Central America. Ray Carson/University of Florida Photographic Services, 1996. Used with permission of University…
Land Acknowledgments Are Not Enough
The installation “Never Forget” by Nicholas Galanin, a Tlingit and Unangax̂ artist and musician, speaks back to California’s “Hollywood” sign and is a call to action for return…
Allying With Parasites to Fight Industrial Oil Palm
A Ganoderma fungus epidemic attacks oil palm trees at a plantation in Indonesian-controlled West Papua. Sophie Chao In October 2019, I traveled through an oil palm monocrop with…