LIVING #FICTIONS
The theme of “living fictions” comes from a presentation I gave at a recent meeting of the EASA Anthropology of Law and Rights network and builds on its…
Tag: law
The Right to Own Living Memorials
Are you an organ donor? Have you donated your body to science? Have you donated a loved one’s body to science? If you answer yes to any of…
Stone Age Site Saved
A Stone Age archaeological site in South Africa has been saved from the threat of diamond mining. The site, called Canteen Kopje, is renowned for its cache of…
Notes From a Crime Scene
Drive out in the late afternoon to one of the many hills on the outskirts of the tiny Arizona town of Arivaca and look west. You will see…
Diamond Mine Threatens Stone Age Artifacts
Researchers are panicking as a Stone Age archaeological site in South Africa called Canteen Kopje is facing demolition by diamond mining. Miners have already started to clear the…
Exploring Boundaries: From Access to Female Sexworkers to the Question of Research
When designing a research project, a researcher’s initial plans are often interrupted by what data we actually can access. Whether negotiating political structures, cultural taboos, necessary permissi…
A View From the Train Tracks
In September 2015, the disturbing image of a drowned Syrian toddler named Aylan Kurdi, whose body had washed ashore on a beach in Turkey, triggered an international outcry…
#Review: Illegality, Inc.: Clandestine Migration and the Business of Bordering Europe
It is a banal insight that law creates the illegal and the conditions for illegality. At the most basic level, crossing a border without the required identification (passport)…
Last will and predicament? by Bob Simpson
It was recently reported by the Guardian that there has been drop in organ donation rates in the UK.[i] It was also reported at about the same time…
25. Digital rights activists vs. Trans-Pacific Partnership: a field-theoretical analysis
This is the 25th post in the freedom technologists series Keynote to the conference “Media, culture and change across the Pacific: perspectives from Asia, Oceania and the Americas”…
The Power Behind Disposability: Why New York City’s ban on polystyrene was vilified, sued, and reversed
On July 1 New York City banned disposable Styrofoam containers. First they were sued over the decision, and last week the ban was overturned. What is the big…
Journeys for Justice in Tanzania
Much has been written about women’s land rights in Africa, but little research has been undertaken on how law works in practice, particularly in statutory court systems. Before…
In the Journals – September 2015
Welcome back to In the Journals, a round-up of recent journal publications on security, crime, law enforcement and the state. September is upon us, and that means classes…
Toxic Politics: A Collection of Research Projects
The global economy produces pervasive contaminants, harmful pollutants, damaging particles, and poisonous atmospheres, which are inescapably part of everyday life, though the harms and benefits are un…
“The Dregs of the Library”: Trashing the Occupy Wall Street Library
When our library at Occupy Wall Street was destroyed, we used our beloved books tactically, as evidence, and then used the trauma of destruction to make a case…
Anthropoliteia and the Political and Legal Anthropology Review (PoLAR)
Two bits of news concerning both Anthropoliteia and the journal Political and Legal Anthropology Review (PoLAR): First, we’re all so excited that our own William Garriot, along with friend-of-A…
Hactivists aren’t terrorists – but US prosecutors make little distinction
[written with Luca Follis, Lancaster University] Activists who use technology to conduct political dissent – hacktivists – are increasingly threatened with investigation, prosecution and often disprop…
Liminality, Biomedicine, and the Law – A symposium supported by the wellcome trust
Biomedicine and the life sciences continue to rearrange the relationship between culture and biology, problematizing what it means to be a person, and introducing uncertainty and instability to…
Kennedy and the Triumph of the Social
While everyone should be celebrating the monumental decision of the Supreme Court to recognize same-sex marriages, there is also something in there that, along with this weeks’ ruling…
Committing Crimes during Fieldwork: Ethics, Ethnography, and “On The Run”
At this point the debate about Alice Goffman’s book On The Run looks something like this: Goffman writes a successful ethnography. Journalists are peeved that Goffman followed social science …
Local Contexts – Licensing and Labelling Traditional Knowledge
I went to a fascinating lunchtime talk last Thursday given by Dr Jane Anderson, a legal anthropologist at NYU who specialises in investigating the relationship between intellectual…
A pluralistic approach to the anthropology of morality: Yolŋu reverse role-play
‘The array of distinct assumptions about issues regarding moral variability, the nature of the moral domain, and how individual freedom factors into moral action can all result in…
Guns, America and Anthropology
America has a problem with guns. This is certainly not news, but at the moment it is once again newsworthy. I have mentioned my position on guns here…