AnthroVice
Grumpy Grad Student I am an early tenure-track professor with a needy grad student advisee. I appreciated my PhD advisor’s practice of briefly checking in with my mental…
Tag: Opinion
The Myth of the Apolitical Judge
How Language Ideologies Underlie the Judicial Confirmation Process One thing Neil Gorsuch has in common with many previous Supreme Court nominees is his insistence that he is an…
The Unwelcomed Guest
Fibonacci Blue, CC BY 2.0 Early in April the faculty at Indiana University had a heated email discussion about Charles Murray’s visit to our campus. The co-author of…
Populating the Pacific Northwest
On the Discovery of a 14,000 year old settlement on the west coast of Canada. Mainstream media were quick to pick up on a report of a 14,000…
Turkey Votes
The Turkish referendum could extend President Erdoğan’s one-man rule. A piece of bicolored paper. On the left is printed EVET (YES), in black font over a white background,…
Dream Factories in the Time of War
On Sunday, February 26, 2017, the Arab world held elections—anyone who had access to a cell phone and wanted to pay the extra fee to send an SMS…
Six Ways Anthropologists Can Challenge White Supremacy
Recently, white supremacists attempted to defame Boasian Anthropology and its historic role in challenging scientific racism. This article proposes some concrete steps by which to challenge whiteness …
The Strange Public Afterlife of Anthropological Theory
Didier Fassin, in an important recent intervention, directed our attention to the “public afterlife of ethnography.” We as anthropologists do not and cannot expect to control how anthropological theor…
The Docile Ethnographer?
On Self-Censure and Fieldwork “Looking forward to reading more in this series. Would have liked to retweet it, but I’m not touching anything critical until I’m done with…
Failing The Moral Test: Canadians Must Redress Our Nation’s Abuse Of Children
the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children* On Valentine’s Day, 2017, Justice Edward Belobaba of…
Failing The Moral Test: Canadians Must Redress our Nation’s Abuse of Children
the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children* On Valentine’s Day, 2017, Justice Edward Belobaba of…
New Study: 60 Percent of Primate Species Threatened With Extinction
The Philippine tarsier, a small primate that is increasingly threatened by habitat destruction and the pet trade, is just one example of the many primates throughout the world…
From Erdoğan’s Turkey to Trump’s America
Since signing a petition to end state violence against Kurds in southeast Turkey, academics critical of the Turkish regime have come under increased scrutiny. These “dopey academics” as…
How Will the Power of the Pussyhat Endure?
Pussyhats—pink, handcrafted caps with cat-like ears that were worn during the Women’s March on Washington and in supporting women’s marches around the world—are more than just a visual…
A Field Guide to Trump’s Swamp
The president-elect has populated “the swamp” with power brokers who are marred by potential conflicts of interest. Andrew Harnik/Associated Press For me, a social anthropologist who has …
Trump’s Formulaic Twitter Insults
Every presidential transition also involves a change in the regime of language. This year the juxtaposition between the outgoing and incoming regimes is especially stark, something President Obama’s…
Native by Design
Who has the right to manufacture, sell, wear, or display objects and designs that come from or are inspired by Native Americans? Alannah Giannino/Flickr In March 2016, Denver,…
How Our Contradictions Make Us Human and Inspire Creativity
The fissures created in our experiences between our principles and actions can be a source of profound creativity and reflection. Nicolas Nova/Flickr This article was originally published…
How Our Contradictions Make Us Human and Inspire Creativity
The fissures created in our experiences between our principles and actions can be a source of profound creativity and reflection. Nicolas Nova/Flickr This article was originally published…
Archaeology in Times of Trump
Archaeologists Against Trump is the name of a Facebook group. It can also be applied to the writings and actions by a large number of archaeologists concerned with…
Black Lives Matter and Reflections from a Civil War
The Black Lives Matter movement is seeking to put an end to the inequities faced by blacks in the United States. In Sri Lanka, the failure to redress…
Donald Trump’s Foreign Policy: Bullying, Domination, and Fearmongering
When pundits and defense intellectuals fret about Donald Trump’s foreign policy (if “policy” isn’t too grand a name for what often amounts to little more than improvised verbal…
We’re Looking for Columnists!
We are seeking opinion columnists to write engaging commentary for the Anthropology News website in 2017. Do you want to provide an anthropological perspective on “hot topics” in…
Paleolithic Ax Debunks Colonial Myth
Earlier this year, a team of Australian researchers led by Peter Hiscock from the University of Sydney published new findings about a fragment of a ground-edge ax—which might…