Bunk is not Bunn: A Silly Claim about the Origin of Coffee
In a non-academic website called Atlas Obscura, there is an article with the entertaining title: “Before Drinking Coffee, People Washed Their Hands With It.” The article was written…
Tag: plants
The Wild Pantry
Plants and Their Stories Finally, it’s time. As a team we have arrived in Cambodia—a geographer and an anthropologist embarking on a journey that we have joyfully planned…
Podcast on Gulf Almanac Lore
My podcast with Ahmed AlMaazmi and Tamara Fernando is posted online on the New Books Network.
Plantas para alejar las malas vibras
Aquí se puede leer mi ponencia del Congreso Internacional sobre la Amazonía Peruana II, titulado “Plantas para alejar las malas vibras: Observaciones etnbotánicas de la Amazonía urbana.” …
Seasonal Knowledge and Arab Gulf Almanacs
I am pleased to announce the publication of my new book: Seasonal Knowledge and the Almanac Tradition of the Arab Gulf. Details about the book, including a free…
Repairing Environmental Politics: Multispecies Healing in Ecuador’s Oil Frontier
Editorial Note: This post is part of our series highlighting the work of the Anthropology and Environment Society’s 2021 Roy A. Rappaport Prize Finalists. We asked them to outline the…
Aden in the mid-19th Century
James Vaughn, a physician stationed in British-controlled Aden in the mid-19th century, published an article in 1853 in the British Pharmaceutical Journal and Transactions (12:226-229,385-388), w…
With Pierre Loti in Persia
My friend, the historian G. Rex Smith, has recently translated into English a marvelous travel diary by the French military official and traveller Pierre Loti (1850-1923). It is…
Six Coffees
Check out this article on six different kinds of coffee in the Middle East on Middle East Eye.
al-Qazwini Manuscript
check it out here…
Plants that Keep the Bad Vibes Away
A special issue on “Phyto-Communicability” will be coming out in the journal Ethnos at the end of this year. I contributed a research article to the issue that…
#ExistenceOnSearch: Multispecies encounters and knowledge dialogue at the in-between space
Este contenido está disponible en español aquí. #BecomingBioDiverse Photograph by Felipe Villegas. Instituto de Investigación de Recursos Biológicos Alexander von Humboldt. Image courtesy of the aut…
Weeds don’t exist in the wild: What can that tell us about humans?
Each so-called weed, after all, has a remarkable story to tell. Each is the product of millions of years of evolution. Each is a descendant from an ancient…
The decadence and depravity of Biosphere 2
Biosphere 2 is an Earth systems research facility on occupied Tohono O’odham land (in so-called Oracle, Arizona, just north of Cuk Ṣ…
Medicinal Plants of the Rogue Rivers at Grand Ronde, 1858
When the tribes got to the reservation in 1856, the federal Indian agents were then 100% responsible for feeding them and caring for their health Continue reading
Anthro/Zine Highlights: Student Report from Bali
Now in its second year of publication, Anthro/Zine is the undergraduate companion to Anthropology Now. Each new issue, published under a Creative Commons license, is released online to…
Flora of Qatar
For anyone interested in photographs of the flora of Qatar, there is a fine website produced by Dr. Alexey Sergeev. You can even search by species. Overall the…
Marco Polo on Sago (Metroxylon sagu)
There is no single authoritative edition or manuscript detailing Marco Polo's travels. The consensus is that the first editions of what became Le Devisement du Monde were…
Some more zany anthropology stuff
I've been trying to carry on the discussion over at Savage Minds on the post I highlighted the other day, but they don't like you commenting on…
Spooky Nonsense on Domestication
I subscribe to an anthropology blog called Savage Minds – you can find it in my sidebar, I've been reading it for years, and I quite like…
‘Remarkable Plants’ by Bynum & Bynum, ‘The History of Central Asia’ by Baumer
It was my birthday last week, so I've got some new books to read, including volume two of Christoph Baumer's The History of Central Asia (I B Tauris),…