Firsting in Research
Declaring that a research is the “first” to discover, do, or go somewhere is not only rarely correct, given myriad local knowledges since time immemorial, but is also…
Tag: environment
The Coastal Edge
New technologies are refortifying our coastlines against anthropogenic climate change, drawing our water edgelands near and making them tangible and perhaps valuable. Edgelands, those ignored yet sym…
Partnering with Nonhumans for Climate Action
Arctic sea ice is breaking up and melting as the world’s atmosphere and waters warm. Julianne Yip Arctic sea ice is dying: Its extent, volume, and thickness have…
Mobilizing Cemeteries, Representing Ancestors: The Infrastructure of Protest and the Anti-Petroleum Complex Movement in Pengerang, Malaysia
Resisting the “Rotterdam Port of the East” In 2011, the prime minister of Malaysia, Najib Razak, and the CEO of the national oil company Petronas, Shamsul Azhar Abbas,…
dear gretas
[no-caption] Javier Zayas Photography/Getty Images In my poem, I call up anarchs. Who are they? Anarchs are us: born leaderless and classless—and born to groove. Our species, Humo…
Did Processed Foods Make Us Human?
Anthropologist Bill Schindler uses techniques developed thousands of years ago to prepare fresh-caught salmon during the filming of National Geographic’s The Great Human Race. Luke Cormack …
What’s Left Unsaid When a Language Dies
“Transition” by Papua New Guinean artist Philemon Yalamu. From Papua New Guinea: A New Dawn by Fondazione Imago Mundi/Luciano Benetton Collection. A Death in the Rainforest: How a Languag…
What Human Hair Reveals About Death’s Seasonality
A lock of hair from Edith Cook, a girl who died in 1876, offers a window into her death. Jelmer Eerkens Each wave of Edith Howard Cook’s reddish-blonde…
Climate Change May Have Been a Major Driver of Ancient Hominin Extinctions
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…
What If There Is Life on Venus?
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…
The Green Woods of Resilience
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…
There’s no such thing as “We”
Put simply, evoking the universal “we” is a way to discard differences and maintain business as usual.
#Book Symposium: Landscapes of Power
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…
#Book Symposium: Landscapes of Power
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…
#Book Symposium: Landscapes of Power
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.…
Do Black Lives Matter in Outer Space?
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…
Narratives of dysfunction and success stories in e-waste recycling in India
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…
How COVID-19 Is Changing People’s Relationships With Houseplants
“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…
Wildfire Archaeology and the Burning American West
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…
Environments that Could’ve Been
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,…
So long, Indiana Jones, or who owns “El Mirador”?
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…
Book Review: Billionaire Wilderness: The Ultra-Wealthy and the Remaking of the American West by Justin Farrell
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…
Book Review: The Licit Life of Capitalism: US Oil in Equatorial Guinea by Hannah Appel
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…
Being Clear-Eyed About Citizen Science in the Age of COVID-19
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…