A swimming pool is never just water. It’s a heavily managed aquatic ecosystem, held in precarious balance by chemistry, cultural norms, and care. Without treatment, pools explode with…
By Simon Hoyte & Jerome Lewis The world is waking up to the deep connection between human, animal, plant, and environmental health. The concept of ‘One Health’, coined…
By Simon Hoyte & Jerome Lewis The world is waking up to the deep connection between human, animal, plant, and environmental health. The concept of ‘One Health’, coined…
An anthropologist delves beyond simplistic portrayals of the anti-natalist movement to understand what motivates its adherents. ✽ Growing up in the atheistic milieu of China’s Cultural Revolution, my…
Isotopes in fossil teeth suggest ancient animals traveled less than once thought—making researchers rethink past human societies and future conservation. ✽ Hundreds of hooves thunder, announcing the h…
Atul K. Shah‘s Organic Finance denounces our destructive, profit-driven financial system and proposes an alternative model rooted in community, ecology, and cultural diversity. Employing nature-…
A poet and aspiring anthropologist in Indonesia reflects on the values reflected in rice cultivation in a traditional village in Southern Banten, West Java, Indonesia. ✽ I WROTE…
A visual anthropologist explores how divine cattle collide with urban realities in Kathmandu, revealing contradictions between ancient values and contemporary lifeways. ✽ In the haze of dawn, Kathmand…
In memory of Sabine Luning(30 August 1959 – 6 March 2025) whose support and input has shaped our thinking in […] The post Alternatives to Extractivism. A manifesto…
In Rejkjavik, the well-known Finnish architect Alvar Aalto designed a beautiful house that is all about Nordic countries cooperation, the “Nordic House”. We had the honour to be…
Youtube class video (click here) or follow the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eN37UsIvVIg&t=13s Contents The Dual Mandate: Geographical and E…
How the anthropology of reciprocity helps explain our reliance on plastic in healthcare. Single-use disposable medical plastic waste is a huge issue. But rational, scientific solutions will only…
Matthew Archer’s Unsustainable critiques the frameworks used to measure corporate sustainability and exposes how market-driven reporting shirks environmental responsibility. This convincing and timely…
An anthropologist unpacks how colonial histories and racial and class hierarchies shape who is allowed to desire and accumulate gold today. ✽ In July 2018, my fiancé and…
Andreas Malm. 2024. The Destruction of Palestine is the Destruction of the Earth. London. New York: Verso Urgency is the word that […] The post The Destruction of Palestine is…
The latest volume of the Routledge Handbook of Architecture, Urban Space and Politics edited by Nikolina Bobic and Farzaneh Haghighi explores the socio-political nature of architecture and urban…
In 2015, I was back in India’s capital city, Delhi after two years of fieldwork in villages in rural parts of the country. On my return, the city…
One early morning in August 2024, I boarded a coach bus in downtown San Francisco. We drove over the Sierra Nevada Mountains, past Reno, and through the Pyramid…
Fifty years on, Vietnam is still reckoning with the long-term ecological toll of U.S. warfare—a grim warning as Israel and Russia unleash similar destruction in Gaza and Ukraine.…
I am not sure there isn’t a major disconnect here. The global mining comglommoabberation Riotinto have the worst record, morally, ethically, and with their dirty-mucky-fingers inside the struct…
An anthropologist discovers diasporic flights—including her own—that begin at and return to the waters of the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea. ✽ WITHIN A FEW HOURS…
It is a Tuesday in May in upstate New York, and the world is greening all around me. A little rain falls from a clouded-over sky scattering bright…
“Al-‘ard haafya. La terra è nuda [the land is bare].” Abdu concluded one of our discussions with this sentence in […] The post Return to a Bare Land…
An archaeologist who studies past farming practices in the north coast of Peru argues these offer models for navigating current climate crises. ✽ SEEING THE NORTH COAST of…