Engagements with Ethnographic Care
On care and self-care as an anthropologist and rape crisis advocate. I came to my work with survivors of sexual violence, initially, out of care. Care about the…
Tag: Featured Posts
On Not Being Seen
Visibility in the field can be fraught with methodological and ethical dilemmas. “Go ahead inside. I need to get a few things from the trunk,” I told Destiny…
A Nuclear Advocacy Dilemma
Advocacy anthropology does not always mean aligning oneself with an underdog. Nicolas Raymond/Flickr (CC BY 2.0) Since the establishment of our discipline, anthropologists have fretted over the questi…
Writing and Research in a Conflict Zone
For the activist-scholar research can mean navigating between different audiences, modes, and ethics of representation. When the Kony 2012 video went viral, it sparked numerous conversations about Wes…
Introduction to “Ethnographer as Activist”
Grappling with Ethnography and Advocacy in the Field What follows is a transcribed conversation between the authors. It has been edited for length and clarity. iStock Haley Bryant:…
Awkward Objects of Genocide
The Holocaust and Vernacular Arts in and beyond Polish Ethnographic Museums “Krematorium” (“Crematorium”), Władysław Chajec (1904-1986), 1965, Kamienica Górna, Poland. Inventory No. 31395, Collection …
Reproductive Travelers
Examining the migratory pathways of a global reproductive industry. We’ve joined forces with AAA’s latest public education initiative “World on the Move: 100,000 Years of Human Migration”…
Racialization, Affect, and Refuge
How do we begin to grapple with the racialization of empathy? How do we capture, both ethnographically and politically, the differential allocation of sympathy, compassion, and the kind…
Relics of the Future
The sociotechnical functions of secondhand trams in Romanian cities. This post is the first in a three-part series on Romanian Mobilities: Vehicles of Migration in New Europe. The…
From Erdoğan’s Turkey to Trump’s America
Since signing a petition to end state violence against Kurds in southeast Turkey, academics critical of the Turkish regime have come under increased scrutiny. These “dopey academics” as…
Disrupting Nativism (Part One)
We must confront the nativism, xenophobia, and racism that youth in our “diverse classrooms” experience head on. I began writing this article in June 2016. At that time,…
Cosmopolitan Conceptions in Global Dubai
A 21st century reprohub Since the beginning of the new millennium, the Arab world has experienced unprecedented levels of political violence and disruption. However, against this bloody backdrop,…
Declare Yourself a Vocal Opponent of Torture Today!
Today, as citizens, patriots, and protesters descend on Washington DC, to observe, celebrate, or decry the inauguration of Donald Trump as president of the United States, we must…
Call for Proposals: Populism Rising
As the US inaugurates a new president, AN will turn an eye toward the rise of populism from a global perspective. We’re seeking proposals for feature articles, notes…
Trump’s Formulaic Twitter Insults
Every presidential transition also involves a change in the regime of language. This year the juxtaposition between the outgoing and incoming regimes is especially stark, something President Obama’s…
Democracy in Turkey (but not for Kurds)
No longer can we assume—if anthropologists ever comfortably did—that human rights and formal democracy are mutually constitutive. Worldwide we witness the rise of ostensibly democratically-elected lea…
Undergraduate Futures
On how anthropology might create a safer world for human difference. In writing a piece on the topic of Futures as current senior undergraduates in anthropology we…
Comet Quest
How the Rosetta mission created a new archaeological site in space. Artist’s impression of Rosetta releasing the Philae Lander. ESA-C/Carreau/ATGmedialab A tale of two Rosetta Stones Archaeolog…
The Future of Education is Now
We must radically reform higher education to meet the most pressing needs of our age. It’s Taco Day at Meadowlark Retirement Community in Manhattan, Kansas. “The students usually…
What’s Your Beef
How eating brisket shapes the future in the present. A strong and well-constituted man digests his experiences (deeds and misdeeds all included) just as he digests his…
When Social Media Are the News
As social media become commonplace, they reorganize publics, places, and politics in ways history cannot predict. Over a decade ago, a tectonic shift in communication technologies began…
Big Data, Ethical Futures
Social media and digital networks research is human subjects research. Why not make it more ethical? As more and more disciplines crisscross and work together to study the…
Photography In The House of Pakal
Between 2009 and 2014 I deployed a mix of ethnography, archaeology, and forensic science to examine the undocumented movement of people through the brutalizing Sonoran Desert of Arizona.…
Top Thematic Series
In the run-up to the holiday season we invite you to sit back, relax, and enjoy some of our most popular content this year. We are continually on…