The State of Emergency, Coercive Medicine, and Academia
“Two weeks to flatten the curve,” is what we heard across Canada1 just after March 11, 2020, when the World Health Organization unilaterally declared a global “pandemic” according to…
Tag: fear
The Falcon Cannot Hear the Falconer: Nature vs. Culture in a Pandemic
Part 4 of 5 of the COVID-19 Series. The Seventh Seal As if taken from a plot of some 1950s science-fiction classic, or an episode from the original…
Globalization in the Widening Gyre of COVID-19
Part 2 of 5 of the COVID-19 Series. The Routes of Panic It turns out that when people panic, they panic according to a template. Panic follows established…
The Fear: Working through the apocalypse
I don’t know what’s right and what’s real anymore I don’t know how I’m meant to feel anymore When do you think it will all become clear ‘Cause…
Anthropology at, and of, the Limit
Where do we draw the line of separation? Who draws it, and for which purposes? When the former interior minister of Italy, Matteo Salvini, launched his little war…
Out of Sight, Out of Mind: The No-Map and the Fear of Being in the No Go World
The NGO personnel in Gaziantep’s office (Turkey) was in shock. Little groups were talking loudly in Arabic, or keeping their lips firmly closed. “It was an air-strike”, my…
No Go World: How No Go Zones Make the World a More Dangerous Place
As neo-nationalists gain strength across Europe and the promise of ‘strong’ borders continues to gain traction with electorates across the world, we need few reminders of the paradoxes…
Fear of/in the Ethnography
Dr Tarek Younis is cultural psychologist with a PhD/PsyD in Clinical Psychology. He is an Honorary Research Associate at University College London. His British Academy postdoctoral fellowship was…
Can a Transgender Body Be the Body of the Nation?
While the US federal government remained in the longest partial shutdown in history, the Trump administration managed to make headway in its baffling effort to prevent transgender Americans…
The Obsession with Death, But Fear of Dying
In my observation of society there has always been an obsession with death. Death is everywhere in pop culture from blazing articles on tabloid pages at the supermarket…
A fear that never ends #fieldnotes
I started my own journey in the Brazilian northeast, on the plane from Rio de Janeiro to Fortaleza, Ceará, with a dream. After wandering around the airport, hot…
He doesn’t hold back his criticism
I was looking at one of my interviews with philosophy professors and was struck by this little explanation of why he had not picked someone as his dissertation supervisor (directeur in…
What war? Whose war?
Internal changes must come about. © Cindy Cornett Seigle, via creative commons. By Thijl Sunier The day after the attacks in Paris, the French President François Hollande declared…