New research suggests some of our species’ closest relatives died out because of significant changes in climate, findings that may offer a warning for humanity today. Aliraza Khatri/Getty…
In the throes of a pandemic that has underscored the fragility of human life on Earth, news has come of possible life on another planet, with the detection…
Conservationist Madeleine Nyiratuza (center) walks through Rwanda’s Gishwati Forest with three eco-guards, who were charged with protecting the area. Courtesy of Madeleine Nyiratuza For a…
Put simply, evoking the universal “we” is a way to discard differences and maintain business as usual.
The cover of Dana Powell’s book, Landscapes of Power, taken from a painting by Diné teacher and muralist James B. Joe titled Bleeding Sky, is our first glimpse…
In her monograph Landscapes of Power, Powell takes the proposed – at the time of her initial fieldwork – development project of the coal plant Desert Rock on…
In Landscapes of Power, Dana Powell maps a failure: the proposed Desert Rock power plant which never came into being beyond paper thin promises made via PowerPoint presentations.…
Artist Peter Williams explores Afrofuturist themes in this painting titled “He Was a Global Traveler.” (Peter Williams, “He Was a Global Traveler,” 2020, oil on canvas, 72 x 96…
There is a growing consensus that India is going through a waste crisis, and this awareness unfolds parallel to an increasing awareness of the beyond-human time it takes…
“Since when did people start naming plants?” my mother asked me. We were at the dining room table, scrolling through pictures of plants on my iPhone. The photos—close-ups…
As I type, the American West is ablaze with more than 100 devastating wildfires. Many of these are record-setting in both size and intensity. Several, including one in…
Speculation is inevitable in social science. Infinite variables exceed what a researcher can grasp, making confidence hard to attain. There are always gaps in our knowledge of reality,…
The rule of “finders, keepers” has held true for most archaeological discoveries at least since museums, as we now know them, have existed. Collectors of foreign objects have…
In Billionaire Wilderness: The Ultra-Wealthy and the Remaking of the American West, Justin Farrell examines the lives of the ultra-wealthy who make Teton County, Wyoming, the richest county…
In The Licit Life of Capitalism: US Oil in Equatorial Guinea, economic anthropologist Hannah Appel closely examines the operations of US oil companies in Equatorial Guinea, not only…
In March 2011, one of the strongest earthquakes on record struck the Fukushima Dai’ichi Nuclear Power Plant in northeastern Japan. Combined with a subsequent tsunami, the disasters triggered…
The Budhi Gandaki River, shown here downstream from Nubri Valley, rushes with icy turquoise water. Madison Wrobley “I’ve been told this is the longest suspended water system in…
Editor’s note: This is the third post in an ongoing series called “The Spectrum of Research and Practice in Guatemalan Science Studies.” The surface installation of the Escobal…
Micha Rahder’s An Ecology of Knowledges: Fear, Love, and Technoscience in Guatemalan Forest Conservation is an ethnographically rich account of the dense conservation networks and politics that operat…
Growing and harvesting this food helped the author connect with nature. Stuart Lang As the rain fell on my hands, washing away the soil, I threw the last…
Macaques sit near Florida’s Silver River. Rachel Simmons/Flickr Steve Johnson never thought he’d have to worry about death threats, not in his line of work. Johnson is a…
[no-caption] Angus Greig SAPIENS host Chip Colwell interviews Elic Weitzel, a doctoral candidate in anthropology at the University of Connecticut, about his recent article for SAPIENS tha…
by Calla Wahlquist @callapilla Rio Tinto blasts 46,000-year-old Aboriginal site to expand iron ore mine Mining company was given permission to blast Juukan Gorge cave, which provided a…
Mountain goats roam the streets of Llandudno, in north Wales, in the absence of tourists. Christopher Furlong/Getty Images In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, many have noted…