Centering Black Lives in the Study of Human Remains
A contributor to a special series on decolonizing anthropology reckons with bioarchaeology’s racist past by focusing on Black women’s creativity and everyday lives in her work. This contribution…
Tag: Ethics
A Native Alaska Community’s Reckoning With Vaccine Hesitancy
An anthropologist’s research with Tlingit communities in Alaska shows they have good reasons to be skeptical about vaccines. They know their history. ✽ New COVID-19 boosters are now…
Will a Nobel Prize Make Paleogenomics More Accountable?
An anthropologist offers possible directions for ancient DNA studies moving forward—especially regarding the field’s complex histories with Indigenous communities and public education. This article w…
Nuremberg, Covid, and Anthropology: Never Again
Today, August 20, 2022, marks the 75th anniversary of the end of the trials of medical professionals at Nuremberg. Central principles and fundamental rights were enshrined as a…
Omar Dewachi on Iraq
Omar Dewachi, an anthropologist who was an Iraqi physician during the Gulf War, has published an article from his forthcoming book, which is entitled “When Wounds Travel: Ecologies…
Is Donated Blood a Gift or a Commodity?
In 1950, human blood was stored for patient use at a U.S. Mobile Army Surgical Hospital in Korea. U.S. National Archives and Records Administration/Wikimedia Commons In the spring…
Is Donated Blood a Gift or a Commodity?
An anthropologist dives into the morally fraught blood and plasma industry and what it reveals about human societies—the good, the bad, and the gory. ✽ In the spring…
Radical Harm Reduction and the Responsibility of a World by Jarrett Zigon
Addiction is exceedingly moralized. Perhaps no other concept associated with the experience of addiction reveals this more than that of responsibility. Too often, addiction is understood in…
Requiem for a War Robot
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…
Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies: Migrant Farmworkers in the United States (Book Review)
by Ellie Plumb In Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies: Migrant Farmworkers in the United States, Seth M. Holmes seeks to uncover the synergistic effects that citizenship, race, ethnicity, and…
Should You Feel Bad About Your Pandemic-Era Plastic Waste?
Plastic waste has grown exponentially across the globe during the pandemic. Matthew Williams-Ellis/Universal Images Group/Getty Images “Sometimes I want to avoid producing excessive waste…
Bulldozing Islamic Jeddah
mid-19th century view of Jeddah from Richard Burton’s travelogue The current de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, MBS, has promoted a major development scheme entitled Vision 2030. This…
The Cultural Anxieties of Xenotransplantation
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…
Lament for Yemen
Lament for Yemen Yemen,your body lies crushedbeneath the rubble that was the homewhere you were bornyour blood floods the landbreaks the terraced slopeswhere sorghum supplied every needyour br…
Environment, Labour and Capitalism at Sea (Book Review)
by Connie Scott “Fish simply appear in supermarkets” (p.209), writes Penny McCall Howard. Most consumers have little or no awareness of where their fish comes from, or of…
The Hard Labor That Fuels the Hair Trade
The majority of hair that India exports comes from waste—such as the strands gathered in this picture of a street collector in Chennai. Emma Tarlo Every evening, for…
Ayça Çubukçu: On “Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology”
Published in 2004 in the inspirational context of a veritably exploding anarchism around the world, David Graeber’s Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology (referred to here on as Fragments)is…
Who Owns the Holy Land?
As another year draws to a close, it is hard not to think in larger terms of the course of the last century. The world has seen two…
Head of a Maiden
My poem “Head of a Maiden” is my response to the recent New York Times article “Looking for a Stolen Idol? Visit the Museum of the Manhattan D.A.”…
Does DNA Simplify or Complicate Repatriation Claims?
University of Cape Town archaeologist Simon Hall leads a visit to the farm in Sutherland, South Africa, from which the remains of several individuals were taken a century…
The Blockbuster Exhibit That Shouldn’t Have Been
Museum professionals often point to the 1972 to 1981 Treasures of Tutankhamun tour as the beginning of the blockbuster exhibit era, in which museums host exhibitions that appeal…
Enigmas of Corporeal Justice: Surrogacy and Legality in India
Over the last two decades, India has become a popular global destination for what is commonly referred to as reproductive tourism, wherein clients travel from one part of…
Repatriation Has Transformed, Not Ended, Research
“Wheel,” by the Cheyenne-Arapaho artist Hock E Aye Vi Edgar Heap of Birds is situated outside the Denver Art Museum. The artwork evokes Indigenous peoples’ efforts to counter…
The Sisters of Loretto Share a Kinship With the Earth
The Sisters of Loretto, a women’s religious community, prioritize environmental stewardship at their working farm in rural Kentucky. Cody Rakes This month, global delegates have been gath…