Anthropology…in Theory
Bernard Perley © 2019 Bernard Perley is Maliseet from Tobique First Nation in New Brunswick, Canada. He teaches courses in linguistic anthropology and Native American studies at the…
Tag: Featured Posts
Observations on Rastafari Cosmopolitics from the Caribbean
Rastafari-grounded and Caribbean imaginative reinventions have long influenced the evolution of Caribbean ethnography. They could inspire a decolonial anthropology for this century. “I am Ethiopian j…
Resisting Indigenous Erasure from Alcatraz Island to Elizabeth Warren
A critical look at anthropology and 50 years in the fight for Indigenous sovereignty (1969–2019). Indians must be redefined in terms that white men will accept, even if…
The Way We Were?
The radicalism of the 1960s transformed anthropology. But ours was not the racist, exoticizing, colonial project it was imagined to be. The 1960s—Vietnam and resistance to the war;…
Upsetting the Canon
Teaching anthropology offers a site for critical intervention. So what should we be reading with our students? A critical and reflexive anthropology requires, beyond the self-indulgent condemnation of…
Homage to Those Who Hollered before Me/Meditations on Inheritances and Lineages, Anthropological and Otherwise
Homage to Those Who Hollered before Me Silence chose me I didn’t choose silence silence immobilized me I could not breathe in my own skin without breaking the…
Letting Go and Holding On, Documenting Hope in Postwar Guatemala
When Beti asked her twelfth-grade students to consider Guatemala’s contemporary challenges, their suggestions quickly filled the board. In large letters, their words loomed like storm clouds: corrupti…
Comedic Lies as Transitory Truths
Why are stand-up comedians better anthropologists than, well, anthropologists? And what happens when a Danish anthropologist takes the mic? Anthropology News recently decided to no longer accept prank…
Making, Holding, and Guarding as Spatial Politics of Healing
“I wouldn’t want anyone to get attached to a space. But if, for the sake of an example, there is going to be a space, then it needs…
A Fieldpoem for World Poetry Day
How we practice and write ethnography matters. Poetry is one way to understand what it feels like to be human at a particular time and place. The difference…
The Conversation
What is does it mean to work post-graduation, and what does anthropology have to do with it? It happens every quarter. The conversation. Students ask us big questions…
Unapologetically Inaccurate
Rami Malek claims “we’re longing for stories like” the one he won an Oscar for. Are we? On Sunday, Rami Malek won an Academy Award for portraying Freddy…
Silicon Satire
How memes articulate tech trouble and signal “all the things.” History repeats itself, “the first time as tragedy, the second as farce”—especially in Silicon Valley. In April 2018,…
Anthropomorphizing Wine in Our Current Climate
What might a Basque wine tell us about current wine trends and broader human issues? My coworkers at the wine bar knew I had an interest in the…
When We Come to Anthropology, Elsewhere Comes with Us
Ethnography’s power comes from the margins. Not the center. A glance at my watch revealed that my colleague was already five minutes over his thirty-minute allotment. Students from…
Emotions, Archistars, and Genoa’s New Bridge
What it means to rebuild in neoliberal times. On August 14, 2018, a large segment of the Morandi Bridge on Italy’s A20 highway connecting Genoa’s western outskirts to…
What Does Diversity and Inclusion Mean?
We need an emic approach to creating more inclusive departments. In December 2018, I called the founder of a diversity management organization to ask about a meeting where…
What Is This Lahu Thing Called Love?
How pop music videos perform a simultaneously Lahu and modern identity. As the music video begins, we see a young man waiting anxiously, peering through a gate. A…
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…
Japan’s Emerging Emotional Tech
Are we developing emotional machines with all-too-human capacities for care? An interactive scene from Gatebox Inc.’s promotional video. Gatebox Inc. There is a moment in Spike Jonze’s film…
Love and the Pursuit of Home after War
Among Acholis, ideals of home and a good life are resilient even if everyday realities increasingly diverge from such aspirations. There is a tendency to think about love…
Looking for Mr. Right Now
What we talk about when we talk about Tinder. I have never been good at dating. I simply refused to acknowledge the subtleties and rituals of courtship, to…
Fieldnotes from the Kitchen Counter
This text appeared in the American Anthropologist submission queue, somehow entered as an anonymous manuscript, which the ScholarOne system is not supposed to permit. It seems to consist…
Love-Politics and the Carceral Encounter
For community organizers in New Orleans, action to oppose the carceral state first requires the building of community. We were in the middle of one of Voice of…