What Students Deserve in a Textbook
With the recent release of Through the Lens of Cultural Anthropology, we asked author Laura Tubelle de González to talk about her new textbook, and her hopes for…
Tag: Culture
U.S. Farmers Made in Brazil
Brazil is the second-largest producer of soybeans globally. Diego Giudice/Getty Images On the outskirts of the town of Luís Eduardo Magalhães, Brazil’s capital of agribusiness in the west…
Without Parking, Those Who Live in Vehicles Have Nowhere to Go
Public parking spaces in Seattle have become crowded with resident campers who have few other options. Graham Pruss This article was originally published at The Conversation and has been …
White Men and Their Toxic White Fragility
It has been several months since the shooting in my classroom at UNC Charlotte where two of my students were killed, four were physically injured, and an untold…
Eating Insects and the Yuck Factor
[no-caption] Marcel Hirshegger/SAPIENS How come some people think eating insects is disgusting? Join SAPIENS hosts Jen Shannon and Chip Colwell as they dine on many-legged delicacies and …
The Strange Rites of Celebrity
Jesse Eisenberg’s breakthrough roles in movies such as Zombieland (2009) and The Social Network (2010) earned him fame and accolades. WEBN-TV/Flickr In the summer of 2016, I ran…
Why Navajos Love Their Country Music
Native Country Band at Windy Mesa Bar in Page, Arizona. Left to right: Errison Littleben, author Kristina Jacobsen, Tommy Bia, LeAnder Bia, Arlondo Bia. Doug Reilly When I…
How Skirts Are Changing Bolivian Wrestling
Martha La Alteña (right) and Susana La Bonita (left) wrestle in El Alto, Bolivia. Aizar Raldes/Getty Images This article was originally published at The Conversation and has been republis…
Religion and politics in the US: How the Christian Right moves away from Jesus
Along with an anthropology degree, I also completed a degree in philosophy with a focus on philosophy of religion. My primary interests in that are theodicies (excuses for…
Why Land Acknowledgments Matter
[no-caption] Fred Harvey/Library of Congress This article was originally published at The Conversation and has been republished under Creative Commons. In Toronto, before singing “O Canad…
How Some Tried—and Failed—to Kill “Race” in Latin America
DNA sequencing is now used extensively in medicine, forensic science, and explorations of ancestry. Andrew Brookes/Getty Images When the structure of DNA was first revealed in 1953, it…
The Very Modern Problem of Human Slavery
More than 70 percent of enslaved people today are women and girls—such as this woman from Nepal, who was sold by her parents as a child. Jonas Gratzer/Getty…
Business anthropology: some thoughts
A couple of weeks ago, I participated in the 2019 Global Business Anthropology Summit held on the New York City campus of Fordham University. Melissa Fisher organized the…
Mit der Seilbahn geht es weiter
Eigentlich sollte es im letzten Jahr vorbei sein. Wir waren in Swanetien, gewissermaßen auf dem Dach Georgiens angekommen. Wir führten unser studentisches Forschungsprojekt Caucasus Conflict Culture z…
Is cultural evolution “neoliberal”?
I have been involved, over the weekend, in a small twitter debate on the old question of whether anthropology should use qualitative or quantitative methodologies. The debate was…
The Story of a Mass Shooting Survivor and Anthropologist
On April 30, my Liberal Studies class, framed as Anthropology and Philosophy of Science (Syllabus), was the site of a horrific event. Two of my students were…
Tax Season Woes Have Complex Roots
In Cochabamba, Bolivia, people’s acceptance of taxes owed varies widely. Miranda Sheild Johansson In the midsize Bolivian city of Cochabamba, informal work is the norm among the lowest-pa…
Offshoring Responsibility for Asylum-Seekers
After fleeing persecution in his home country in 2013, Kurdish-Iranian journalist Behrouz Boochani boarded a boat with more than 60 other asylum-seekers that would be intercepted by the…
Food for Thought: Nourishment, Culture, Meaning
Call for papers The Food Studies Program, New York University (NYU), the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research on Communication (CIRCe) and the Department of Philosophy and Educational Sciences, Univ…
Japan’s Wartime Past Looms Large Over Militarization Efforts
Protestors in Tokyo voice their concerns about Prime Minister Abe’s militarization drive in 2017. Donald C. Wood The thunderous pounding of a military helicopter from the nearby Ground…
Remembering the Woman Who Was My Second Mother in Cuba
Caro in the terrace of her house in Havana, 2001. Ruth Behar When my cellphone rang on the morning of December 12, 2018, and I saw the call…
Milk…It’s Good to Think
David McMurray Anthropology, emeritus Oregon State University I am a product of the Upper Midwest with its (waning) Scandinavian and German influences. I am entangled in “milk culture,”…
What Migrants Leave Behind
A child’s backpack abandoned on a migrant trail in the Tumacácori Mountains suffers the ravages of time. Gabriella Soto “Oh my God. Did you see this backpack?” a…