Islamic Law Is Alive and Well in the U.S.
The complex interplay between American society and immigrants’ religious beliefs has a long and rich history in the U.S. Spencer Platt/Getty Images Teenage girls who are forced to…
Tag: Culture
Research Moving Forward: The Social Construction of Down syndrome
I’m at the point where I’m beginning to plan out my next research project. I’m finishing up work on one manuscript (Genocolonization) and writing another with my partner…
Humanity’s Surprising Variety of Approaches to Toilet Training
[no-caption] David D/Flickr This article was originally published at The Conversation and has been republished under Creative Commons. Are 2-year-olds too young to start toilet training? …
Glacial Melting Isn’t Someone Else’s Problem
High in the Ecuadorian Andes, the peak of Cotacachi was once reliably white. But by the early 2000s, the glacier on top of this dormant volcano, which reaches…
Gruesome TV: dumb culture returns?
The thing that strikes you about The Frankenstein Chronicles is how gruesome it is. This was true too of The Alienist. In both cases, the series begins with…
What Would You Do?
Equality. A term flaunted in many public circles, political campaigns, and social justice movements. In these instances, “equality” refers to fairness and justice in life; the act of…
Grief Can Make Us Wise
A candlelight vigil on February 15 honored the victims of the recent mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida. Jim Rassol/Getty Images In the first hours…
Guns & Anthropology
For the March issue of Open Anthropology we will be highlighting anthropological responses and ethnographic resources on the topics of guns, gun violence, gun safety, and gun control.…
Film Review: Black Panther
Nearly three decades ago, my grandfather took me to the local pharmacy in Broadway, NC to get ice cream (it had an ice cream bar!). While there, I…
Racism by any Other Name Is Still Racism
After the bombing of Pearl Harbor by Japanese forces in December 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed and issued Executive Order 9066 in the name of national security.…
Who First Buried the Dead?
The skeleton on the left is “Lucy,” an Australopithecus afarensis that is 3.2 million years old. The one on the right is a Homo naledi called “Neo,” which…
On Fat Tuesday, Break an Egg Over Someone’s Head
A group of hard-working young market traders in Antigua, Guatemala, take a break to smash cascarones over each other’s heads. Dawn Starin Right now, families throughout the Americas…
Is A Dystopian Consumer Future Already Here?
This blog post is actually an announcement….I’ve started a new chapter and a new blog, and I am calling it “Consuming Culture”. Here is a sneak peak with…
How Ursula Le Guin’s Writing Was Shaped by Anthropology
In creating other worlds, Ursula Le Guin showed the power inherent in constructions of culture and new realities. Marian Wood Kolisch/Flickr This article was originally published at The…
The Death of a Hungry God
[no-caption] Paul Keil One evening in August 2014, a wild elephant was accidentally killed in Gajbari village* in Assam, a state in northeast India. He was a young…
Culture when it takes us captive
[This post was originally published on Medium.] Every organization operates out of an idea of itself. (We call this idea several things: our “business model,” our “value proposition,”…
Diversity + Inclusion in Higher Education, part 1 – This Anthro Life
Welcome listeners to the first installment of our Diversity and Inclusion crossover series, bringing together This Anthro Life with Brandeis University. For those of you who are new…
Is the Clock Ticking Toward Doomsday?
Each January, the science and security board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists unveils an estimate of the likelihood that humanity will self-destruct. They do so by…
Anthropology’s Top Findings of 2017
“Fossil scout” Pedro Boshoff inside the Rising Star cave system in South Africa, where Homo naledi fossils were found. Wits University This year’s anthropological findings brought us fasc…
Why Do We Wrap Presents?
[no-caption] Buppha Wuttifery/Getty Images The holiday season is here. That means presents under Christmas trees, next to menorahs, accompanying Kwanzaa candles, traded at white elephant …
The tense truce between detectorists and archaeologists
Metal detecting is enjoying a resurgence, driven by good press and fantastic finds. But archaeologists are not overjoyed at the rise of the hobby detectorists. Why? There’s been…
The tense truce between detectorists and archaeologists
Metal detecting is enjoying a resurgence, driven by good press and fantastic finds. But archaeologists are not overjoyed at the rise of the hobby detectorists. Why? There’s been…
The Shameful Persistence of White Supremacy in the United States
So-called alt-right groups, such as these demonstrators at the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia on August 12, 2017, have been emboldened by recent political developments in…
Natural Disasters Are Social Disasters
When Hurricane Harvey dumped more than 4 feet of rain over parts of Houston in August, the National Weather Service needed two new colors for their rainfall maps:…