Phantom Vibrations of a Lost Smartphone
An anthropologist who studies human-computer interactions explores how and why losing one’s smartphone feels so unsettling. ✽ David, an American cyborg, has lived in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil,…
Tag: Mind
Smartphones Are Bicycles for Our Minds
The proliferation of smartphones is transforming basic structures of human existence, experience, and performance. How do these machines change what it means to be human? Where is your…
Taking on Parkinson’s Disease—With Boxing Gloves and Punching Bags
In a California gym, people living with Parkinson’s practice noncontact boxing to redefine their experience of the disease and maintain a sense of self. ✽ The smell of…
A Long Road Ahead
SAPIENS’ 2023 poet-in-residence questions where peace of mind can come from for Indian-occupied Kashmir. If you missed the introduction to “A Long Road Ahead,” you can find it…
The Psychedelics Industry Is Booming—but Who’s Being Left Out?
Three researchers discuss the possibilities and problems arising as psychedelic plant medicines, held sacred by many Indigenous communities, move into the global mental health and tourism industries. …
“T”
A poet-anthropologist celebrates how the Orring people of southeastern Nigeria conceptualize the origins—and workings—of the cosmos. “T” is part of the collection Indigenizing What It Mean…
Who Pays the Price When Cochlear Implants Go Obsolete?
Some cochlear implant users can’t afford to keep up with compulsory technology upgrades. After becoming dependent on the devices, they’re losing their hearing and feel abandoned by manufacturers.…
What Is Linguistic Anthropology?
Linguistic anthropologists study language in context, revealing how people’s ways of communicating and expressing themselves interact with human culture, history, politics, identity, and much more. W…
What Cargo Cult Rituals Reveal About Human Nature
In Melanesia, Indigenous communities developed elaborate rituals to bring themselves material wealth starting in the late 19th century. These practices reveal a profoundly important and universal soci…
Why AI Will Never Fully Capture Human Language
Researchers in artificial intelligence have made extraordinary strides in mimicking human language—but they still can’t capture the parts that truly make language human. ✽ The story begins with…
Finding Mental Health Issues Hidden in the Past
An archaeologist speculates about how to uncover evidence of depression, anxiety, and neurodiversities in ancient humans. ✽ Hi, my name is Paige, and I have generalized anxiety and…
Wisdom From the Winding Path
An anthropologist dreams of his work with Songhay sorcerers in Niger and of French poet Edmond Jabès, fictionalizing conversations and experiences to polish nuggets of wisdom for our…
Wisdom From the Winding Path
[no caption] Frans Lemmens/Getty Images Excerpted from Paul Stoller’s essay “Jabès Amongst Songhay Sorcerers” in Philosophy on Fieldwork: Case Studies in Anthropological Analysis, e…
What the Vai Script Reveals About the Evolution of Writing
This handwritten example of Vai script dates to around 1850. British Library/Wikimedia Commons In a small West African village, a man named Momolu Duwalu Bukele had a compelling…
Athletics, IQ, Health: Three Myths of Race
Our recent book, Racism, Not Race, tackles a big lie: The idea that human beings have biological races. Biological races do not exist in humans. Why, then, do…
Predominantly White Institutions’ Overtures to Black Students OR This Is What They Tell You Without Telling You
Enslaved people built the Rotunda at the University of Virginia in the 19th century. Chrispecoraro/Getty Images Go to undergrad, go to graduate school, get a Ph.D. heft onto…
Meet the Ancient Technologists Who Changed Everything
The idea of crafting and using beads as ornamentation may have spread from North Africa outward to other parts of the African continent and to Europe. Nicholas R.…
The Age of Digital Divination
Divination rituals around the world often include animals, as seen in this early 20th-century painting of fortunetelling using a chicken by Russian artist Konstantin Makovsky. Brandmeister/Wi…
How Human Are We?
Hand axes crafted by Homo erectus required skills and planning—and likely, generational knowledge. Nick Longrich This article was originally published at The Conversation and has been rep…
Why Couldn’t Iron Age People Throw Some Stuff Away?
It is often hard to part with the objects left behind by loved ones—even everyday things. Ashton/Flickr I have been told many stories by people who found it…
Rethinking Masculinity: Fathers as Caregivers
The author, Aaron Jackson (center), with Wayne (left), a father whose thoughts about masculinity change as he raises his son Nick (right). Aaron J. Jackson This article was…
What Misspellings Reveal About Cultural Evolution
[no-caption] DrAfter123/Getty Images Something about me must remind people of a blind 17th-century poet. My last name, Miton, is French, yet people outside of France invariably misspell i…
Five Questions for Gillian Tett
In this upcoming free live event, Yoli Ngandali, SAPIENS media and public outreach fellow, asks Gillian Tett five questions about her new book, Anthro-Vision: A New Way to…
Finding and Losing the World’s Oldest Art in Sulawesi
These handprints were made by blowing pigment around a hand placed against the wall in Sumpang Bita Cave, Sulawesi. Franco Viviani In 2019, I made a trip to…