Refusal as Research Method in Discard Studies
Ethnographic refusal is a practice by which researchers and research participants together decide not to make particular information available for use within the academy. Its purpose is not…
Tag: environment
Exploring Boundaries: From Access to Female Sexworkers to the Question of Research
When designing a research project, a researcher’s initial plans are often interrupted by what data we actually can access. Whether negotiating political structures, cultural taboos, necessary permissi…
Conference Report: ‘Comment penser l’anthropocène?’ at Collège de France, Paris by Yannick van den Berg
November 5 & 6, 2015 – Conference Program and Videos The two-day conference ‘Comment penser l’anthropocène?’ (‘How to think the Anthropocene?’) at the Collège de France in Paris…
History Lost to Sea
On a bright and buggy day in July 2014, Max Friesen, whiskered and encased in denim and Gore-Tex, inched across a stretch of tundra overlooking the East Channel…
Airplane Food
Late in January, I boarded a long-haul flight, 27 hours and 5 minutes, 9,405 miles, three connections. I packed emergency Larabars (food for quick energy), ordered gluten-free meals…
Webinar in Islamic Material Culture “The Rise of an Agricultural Empire”
Economy and Material Culture in the Early Islamic Empire Bi-Weekly, Wednesday, 4-6 pm CEST Starting April 6, 2016 Islamic Material Culture The Universität Bonn (Bethany Walker), the Ludwig-Maximilian…
Municipal versus Industrial Waste: Questioning the 3-97 ratio
We do not have an idea of the quantity of non-household solid waste produced in North America. When we do have ideas of (sub)quantities, we do not have…
Cold Enough for Ya?
Every winter, on either the first or second cold snap, I hear the question “Cold enough for ya?” as I get on the bus, exit the Metro, or…
Happy #WorldAnthropologyDay! Celebrate with these great episodes! #WorldAnthroDay
Happy World Anthropology Day! To celebrate #WorldAnthropologyDay we here at TaL have curated some of our favorite past episodes covering how we approach anthropology and where we see…
Seafood Fight
On the wild west coast of Vancouver Island, the tiny hamlet of Kyuquot lies nestled in the folds of British Columbia’s rumpled shoreline. It’s a wilderness paradise with…
New book alert: Mining and Communities in Northern Canada
Mining, as the human activity responsible for some of the planet’s most dramatic landscape transformations and the largest proportion of total industrial waste flows, is a particularly salient…
Fernando Vidal’s and Nélia Dias’s Endangerment, Biodiversity and Culture by Frédéric Keck
Endangerment, Biodiversity and Culture By Fernando Vidal and Nélia Dias (editors) Routledge, 2016, 264 pages What do natural reserves, botanical and zoological parks, anthropology museums and depart…
Anthropologists in Outer Space
Anthropologists studying outer space might sound like fringe science, like something from “The X-Files” or some “ancient aliens” TV show, but we have been studying outer space as…
Piping as poison: the Flint water crisis and America’s toxic infrastructure
Over the past few decades, we have met with much success in curbing some of Americans’ exposure to lead. Yet they have struggled to contain this continuing danger…
Wandering Among the Stars
We dedicate this post to the crew of the space shuttle Challenger, whose intrepid wanderings were tragically cut short 30 years ago today. Growing up in rural…
Call for Posts: The Nature of Infrastructure
The concept of infrastructure draws attention to as-yet-unseen synergies between technology, culture, and materiality. What does this concept have to offer environmental anthropology? While we can saf…
Article Alert! Redefining pollution and action: The matter of plastics
From the specific case of marine plastics, Liboiron’s paper offers a more general point that those of us who study discards need to remember to take seriously: How…
CFP for “Transecology: Transgender Perspectives on the Environment”
This volume seeks to provide novel insights into ecological and environmental issues by drawing on specifically transgender perspectives. Deadline for abstracts: March 1, 2016.
Which came first: people of colour or pollution?
A pair of new publications focus on the “chicken or egg” question in environmental justice: Are present-day disparities around hazardous sites the result of a pattern of placing…
The Politics and Ecology of Water: Notes on the Drought in California
Drowned trees in the dry bed of the Salton Sea. Image by Daniel Mayer from Wikipedia under Creative Commons License. California is great in size and diversity, the…
Building DIY citizen science technology to see invisible marine plastics
We’ve been working on the problem of making tiny, often invisible marine plastics visible through do-it-yourself (DIY) technologies. You can build your own and investigate your local environment.
And Still the World Pursued–The Management of Waste in Max Mad: Fury Road
By Emma Louise Backe Where must we go, we who wander this wasteland, in search of our better selves.” -The First History Man What are the roots that…
Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing’s “The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins” by Timothy Morton
The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing Princeton University Press, 2015, 352 pages Yeah. What…
Article Alert! Legitimating the environmental injustices of war: toxic exposures and media silence in Iraq and Afghanistan
Along with Shiloh Krupar’s Hot Spotter’s Report: Military Fables of Toxic Waste, Bond’s article adds to a growing literature on the environmental effects of military discard practices.