Indigenizing What It Means to Be Human
SAPIENS offers a curated collection of poems and stories that center Indigenous values, worldviews, and insights, creatively reimagining anthropology and the human experience. ✽ Anthropology’s fraugh…
SAPIENS offers a curated collection of poems and stories that center Indigenous values, worldviews, and insights, creatively reimagining anthropology and the human experience. ✽ Anthropology’s fraugh…
A poet-anthropologist speaks to the labyrinthine experiences of domestic violence—the entrapment, the hope for freedom. ✽ During the final week of domestic violence awareness month in October, I…
In England and Wales, a multiyear investigation has uncovered decades of pervasive child sexual abuse in schools, churches, and other institutions. An anthropologist on the project weighs in…
Worlds of Care: The Emotional Lives of Fathers Caring for Children with Disabilities by Aaron J. Jackson is a self-described “meditation on fathers’ everyday lived experiences surrounding care…
On a chilly afternoon in April of 2016, Lana and I were about to embark on a ride through Saint Petersburg’s bustling downtown, so she was instructing me…
Trust exposes and discloses the social. But the heterogeneity and even excessiveness of meaning in the concept—its overdetermination, its multifariousness and multiformity, its downright fuzziness—sug…
An archaeologist speculates about how to uncover evidence of depression, anxiety, and neurodiversities in ancient humans. ✽ Hi, my name is Paige, and I have generalized anxiety and…
What do Twitter debates over Disney-Pixar’s recent family film tell us about today’s parenting politics in the U.S.? ✽ On June 17, Walt Disney Pictures and Pixar Animation…
SAPIENS’ poetry editor and inaugural poet-in-residence break down what makes certain poems anthropological and explore how poetry has the potential to transform ways of thinking and being in…
For deaf people in the U.S., accessibility has become synonymous with provisioning professional sign language interpreters. But in everyday life, deaf people’s experiences of “access” often include mo…
An anthropologist dreams of his work with Songhay sorcerers in Niger and of French poet Edmond Jabès, fictionalizing conversations and experiences to polish nuggets of wisdom for our…
[no caption] Frans Lemmens/Getty Images Excerpted from Paul Stoller’s essay “Jabès Amongst Songhay Sorcerers” in Philosophy on Fieldwork: Case Studies in Anthropological Analysis, e…
Former first lady Michelle Obama savors the scent of a Douglas fir tree presented to the first family for Christmas in 2010. Rod Lamkey/Getty Images Vivian,* a Washington,…
The post What the Anthropology of Smell Reveals About Humanity appeared first on SAPIENS.
In this live event, a panel of archaeologists and podcasters celebrates the completion of SAPIENS Podcast Season 4 and RadioCIAMS’ SAPIENS Talk Back series. Meet the amazing people…
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…
I met Engineer Yakiv[1] on board a merchant ship I had joined just south of Sri Lanka in early 2013. I was there to study seafarers’ perceptions of…
An experimental robotic pack mule, the Legged Squad Support System, walks alongside U.S. Marines on patrol. Sarah Dietz/U.S. Marine Corps Excerpted from War Virtually: The Quest to Autom…
In January, news broke that David Bennett Sr.—a 57-year-old man with a serious heart disease—received a heart from a genetically modified pig. The eight-hour operation, which took place…
Teachers face increasing challenges—from staff shortages to widely varying student achievement levels—with omicron infections sweeping across the country. Santiago Mejia/San Francisco Chronic…
Inherited Buddhist objects and their associated ritual care connect the dead with the living. Buddhist things are not only material. They contain spiritual and emotional power, even when…
“Muslims go to Mecca once, if they are not unnecessarily wealthy (laughing), but people of all kinds come to visit Mevlana [‘s musealized tomb] every year. Why? Because…
Reconstruction of a chamber grave from eastern France. B. Clarys/PCR espaces et pratiques funéraires en Alsace aux époques mérovingienne et carolingienne This article was originally publ…
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…