Judging Books by Their Cover
Why we must challenge misrepresentations of race and culture on our textbook covers. Is it possible to claim that anthropology no longer exoticizes and creates cultural Others, when…
Tag: Featured Posts
Why We Post
Taking Anthropology to the World While we should consider all anthropological projects to be of equal importance to our own discipline, studies which focus on topics such as…
Teaching Anthropology in the Sacrifice Zone
How one group of students engages with ethnography and structural inequalities in their home communities. I am driving through the mountains in pouring, relentless rain. Surrounding me is…
Minneapolis is Awesome
William O. Beeman shares some of his favorite things to do in Minneapolis. Minneapolis is one of the most beautiful cities in America along the banks of the…
Bolivia Prioritizes Transgender and Transsexual Human Rights
“People don’t die because they can’t have marriage” On 19 May 2016, the Chamber of Deputies of The Plurinational State of Bolivia passed Law Nº 807—The Gender Identity…
Clothed-Minded Views on Burqinis
In late August, a Muslim woman on a beach in Nice, France was forced to remove her top and was allegedly fined for wearing a burqini, a modest…
Gender and Disaster Beyond Men and Women
Over the past two decades, considerable attention has been given to the multiple interactions between gender and disaster. Yet the study and integration of gender in disaster and…
An Evolutionary Anthropology Master Syllabus
With the Fall Quarter/Semester fast approaching, many of us are scrambling to organize course syllabi. Whatever the specific course you teach, the required reading list likely reflects a carefully…
Advancing Equity in Higher Education
We must address issues of access and success for our students. It is a summer afternoon and I am sitting in my office with one of my students,…
The Gap that Won’t Be Filled
An Anthropolitical Critique of the “Language Gap” Is language responsible for poverty? If poor and minority parents spoke like rich white parents, would they too become rich and…
A Funny Thing Happened at the Shaolin Temple. . .
How a tourist kept pace with the martial arts experts. It is a fairly standard trick-of-the-trade. A group of highly trained athletes and artists perform for tourists, who…
Argentine Rugby Gets Professional
How Maradona’s support for the Pumas signals a change in the culture of Argentine rugby. Footage of Diego Maradona, the globally famous Argentine ex-soccer player, dancing in the…
Wrestling with Uncertainty in Dakar’s Banlieue
Dakar’s aspiring wrestlers forge entrepreneurial career paths in an uncertain local economy. Children playing at wrestling at an écurie (wrestling school) in the Dakar suburb of Yeumbeul. Young…
Beyond “Embodiment” in Sport
How weightlifting involves relations between tools and bodies. Gym in Gldani, Georgia before a youth competition in April 2012. Photograph courtesy Perry Sherouse Anthropological writing on spo…
New York City’s “First” Mosque
Muslims in the US are non-assimilationist outsiders. So goes a reigning ideology, which was galvanized after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and…
Soccer, Kinship and Migration Dreams in Cameroon
For young men in Cameroon, international soccer dreams and family relations are closely connected. International men’s football (soccer) match: Germany vs. Cameroon. Photo courtesy Wikime…
Sporting Change in Spain
The Morisco Games celebrate Spain’s Islamic past through sporting competition in the present. The King of Granada conquered Purchena, where the victory was marked with lavish games. There…
“Don’t Think About the Crisis, Work!”
Rage, Crisis, and the Informal Economy in Brazil The foundation of Brazilian modernity has emerged from an unresolved contradiction. The informal economy has embraced millions of low-income…
Running Across America
It’s Not All About the Running Wake up, measure body weight, pack gear, run marathon, measure body weight, set up camp, go to sleep. Wake up, collect urine…
The Olympic Future of Mixed Martial Arts
MMA offers a brutal competitive antidote to the cult of the passive spectator, writes D. S. Farrer The Olympics should embrace Mixed Martial Arts (MMA), the world’s fastest…
Sport Mega-Events and Global Political Economy
Olympic Games have become the largest international diplomatic and corporate gatherings, write Susan Brownell and Niko Besnier. In May 2015, American and Swiss authorities swooped into the annual…
Running, Spending and Saving in Japan
Migrant Kenyan athletes must meet the demands of family and prepare for their own futures. All Kenyan medalists in Olympic men’s marathons from 1988 to 2008 have lived…
“Turn Down for What?”
A Brazilian Remix One of the first things I noticed about Kendrick Lamar’s recent performance at the 2016 Grammys was the noise. Fans and critics have written about…
Soccer as Ethnography
Some student soccer players challenge a team of Kurdish asylum seekers to a game. How can cultural identities be studied ethnographically through playing soccer? In the summer of 2014…