Affective Landscapes of the Past and Present in Santa Clara
Long-term residents’ experiences of technological disruption and resilience are an untold yet essential part of the Silicon Valley story. In May 2018, I spoke with Tom, an elderly…
Tag: development
Disrupting Silicon Valley’s Stories
In a climate of pervasive narratives of wealth creation and success, how can anthropology hold corporate and tech sectors to account? In March 2014, Business Insider published the…
Nuclear State, Nuclear Waste
Nuclear State, Nuclear Waste: Emily Simmonds on Canada as a nuclear nation & ongoing colonialism through uranium mining.
Book Review: Hotels and Highways: The Construction of Modernization Theory in Cold War Turkey by Begüm Adalet
In Hotels and Highways: The Construction of Modernization Theory in Cold War Turkey, Begüm Adalet offers an account of the historical construction of the ‘Turkish Model’ as a manufactured …
Religion in the Age of Development: Encounters in Asia
Religious actors have become increasingly involved in development. Likewise, development actors like the World Bank have also become interested in religion (especially the religion of the communities …
Ep. #15 Designing agency: Vijayendra Rao talks development, anthropology, and making social change
Vijayendra Rao, the lead economist at the World Bank in the research department, talks to our own Ian Pollock about the role that anthropology and ethnography could play in helping…
A Note on MUHUM
Muslim Humanitarianism – short MUHUM – is a platform that seeks to foster debate on the complex relationship between charity, philanthropy, humanitarianism, development and Islam. In anthropological a…
Book Review: Gendered Lives, Livelihood and Transformation: The Bangladesh Context edited by Meghna Guhathakurata and Ayesha Banu
In Gendered Lives, Livelihood and Transformation: The Bangladesh Context, editors Meghna Guhathakurata and Ayesha Banu bring together contributors to explore women’s lives and livelihoods during…
East Side Orchestras: Music and Social Change
I am currently working on a research project that looks at the social impacts of Arohanui Strings, Porirua Soundscapes, and Virtuoso Strings. These groups provide free, Sistema-inspired orchestral mus…
Book Review: Children and Media in India: Narratives of Class, Agency and Social Change by Shakuntala Banaji
In Children and Media in India: Narratives of Class, Agency and Social Change, Shakuntala Banaji draws on extensive fieldwork research to offer a rich and textured account of the place of…
The Awakening of the Waters: Clean water, health and village sanitation in the Peruvian Amazon
So it was, long ago, people had no clean water to drink. Instead, they drank from muddy swamps and stagnant puddles of algae and slime. One day, Shigentiri,…
The Awakening of the Waters: Clean water, health and village sanitation in the Peruvian Amazon
So it was, long ago, people had no clean water to drink. Instead, they drank from muddy swamps and stagnant puddles of algae and slime. One day, Shigentiri,…
Ep. #5 Stunted thinking: Annie McCarthy talks slum children, NGOs, and stunting in Delhi
In Ep. #5, Stunted thinking, Annie McCarthy talks slum children, NGOs, and stunting in Delhi, India.
Citizen aid – and why ordinary people are founding their own development projects
By Anne-Meike Fechter At the height of the European refugee crisis, volunteers delivered goods to makeshift camps in Calais, set up soup kitchens, and helped recent arrivals on…
Review: The Darjeeling Distinction
By Peter Luetchford ** Reprinted from Review of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Studies Sarah Besky’s informative monograph on tea plantations in the northern Indian district of Darjeeling fills…
Situating Knowledge
As an anthropologist working at the intersection of anthropology and development studies I sometimes undertake work for development organizations. The kind of work I do does not fall…
Cholera, Cluster Bombs and Summer Vacation
This post can be read at MENA Tidningen.
The Struggle to Protect a Tree at the Heart of Hopi Culture
To Hopi traditionalists—Hopis who practice traditional culture—the humble one-seed juniper tree has deep cultural meaning. Mark Sykes A rumbling, low boom unfurled over the land like a cu…
Sustainable Tourism… for Development?
Not a day goes by without being confronted, one way or the other, with the multiple environmental, societal, and economic challenges that our planet faces. Because it is…
Michael Jennings: UK Election 2017 manifestos and international development: Common ground and clear water
This post is part of a feature on the 2017 UK elections, moderated and edited by Patrick Neveling (University of Bern). With the election coming up today, I…
Who Is Ecotourism’s Winner – Nature, Culture or Capital?
by Sara Loh ‘Capitalism thrives on crisis. This is its engine of innovation and creativity’ – Sian Sullivan For neoliberal conservationists around the world, the environmental crisis has…
The Case for Rethinking the Calendar
Arguments against the current calendar and clock—fueled in part by frustrations with daylight saving time—are behind efforts to adopt a standard worldwide date and time system. Charlie Riedel…
The Fifth Beginning
Global cooperative networks such as the humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders, shown here responding to the 2014 Ebola crisis in West Africa, distinguish the “fifth beginning” from prior…
Enterprising Opportunities: Responsibilising Ghana’s Poor
by Tim Perkin Agbogbloshie is an area of Accra, Ghana’s capital, which has become a graveyard for global electronic waste (e-waste). In light of its structural adjustment after…