Series Introduction: The Politics of Writing About Platform Workers’ Organizing
We are a group of scholars and researchers who work with gig and platform worker unions in India in various capacities. We form the India chapter of the…
We are a group of scholars and researchers who work with gig and platform worker unions in India in various capacities. We form the India chapter of the…
A former National Park Service anthropologist reflects on the vital role of cultural anthropology to the agency’s mission—and what might be lost if the Trump administration’s cuts to…
A paleoanthropologist reflects on relationships between researchers and communities living around sites relevant to human evolution. IN THE BEGINNING In 1887, Eugene Dubois, a Dutch anatomist, embarke…
A group of anthropologists working in Indonesia explores how mistrust among on-demand drivers—toward companies and one another—can be a form of individual power. ✽ DEDI WAS HOPEFUL when…
An anthropologist unpacks how colonial histories and racial and class hierarchies shape who is allowed to desire and accumulate gold today. ✽ In July 2018, my fiancé and…
An anthropologist looks at how tiger conservation efforts in the Sundarbans region of West Bengal appear successful yet often ignore the needs and rights of forest-dwelling communities. ✽…
In this live discussion, journalist and anthropologist Brian Goldstone answers questions about his searing investigation of the working unhoused—and what their stories reveal about the unraveling of t…
An anthropologist highlights the revolutionary role of food processing and dietary diversity—practices often led by women—that were just as crucial to humans surviving and thriving as hunting. ✽…
On December 8, 2024, I received a flurry of WhatsApp messages from my friend Rawia. At the time, she was […] The post On inheritances and contradictions: Agrarian…
An archaeologist explains his team’s insights into how Quina scrapers in southwest China overturn long-standing assumptions about the region’s humans more than 50,000 years ago. This article was…
Looking at the way people divide work in hunter-gatherer societies can tell us something about the evolutionary origins of gender roles. When it comes to the division of…
by Freek Colombijn and Marjo de Theije – Renowned anthropologist James (Jim) Ferguson passed away on 14 February 2025 at 65. He obtained his PhD in Social Anthropology…
The Roti Collective, a community-based research project, explores the layered histories that brought a flatbread from the Indian subcontinent around the world. THE PERFECT BITE Roti, an unleavened…
In a series of essays, a collaborative research project brings together “space anthropologists” to investigate how communities around the globe are grappling with the current boom in outer…
Eli Revelle Yano Wilson. 2024. Handcrafted Careers: Working the Artisan Economy of Craft Beer. University of California Press. 264 pp. ISBN: 9780520401563. Yingkun Hou (Southeast Missouri Stat…
Anthropologist David Graeber’s celebrated theory of “bullshit jobs” continues to provide a critical window into why modern work is often so useless, soul-sucking, and absurd. This article was…
An anthropologist reports on the impediments to labor organizing—and why it’s still worth trying. ✽ In the notoriously anti-union U.S. South, a Volkswagen plant unionized. After months of…
Societies divide labor by gender and age. A biological anthropologist considers when and why this behavior arose. ✽ In his 1776 book The Wealth of Nations, economist Adam…
An anthropologist shines a light on Romani and Egyptian recyclers whose work has been made illegal, calling for a new way of viewing humanity’s garbage. ✽ One afternoon…
An anthropologist follows a group of men who work in India’s rickshaw industry, revealing how their practices of masculinity and mutual aid shape their responses to intensifying flood…
In a new book, an anthropologist reveals the heavy tolls industries have placed on residents in this eastern U.S. city. Here, she explains how these burdens have only…
https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-319-93323-8 Kristina Nielsen: Call Centers have been the study of multiple linguistic and cultural studies that often focus on the topic of outsour…
Two biological anthropologists analyze archaeological and physiological evidence to debunk enduring assumptions about the gendered division of labor in ancient times. This article was originally publ…
East African runners wearing “super shoes” have outpaced global marathon records. But the shoe fervor—alongside older stereotypes about African runners’ “natural” abilities—means athletes’ hard work o…