It’s Not “Just” a Symbol
“Tails” side of the new U.S. quarter featuring Maya Angelou The new Maya Angelou quarter is a symbol, yes. But not “just” a symbol. Because, symbols matter. If…
Tag: Politics of representation
Covid-19, Fatness, and Risk: Medico-Media Discourses and Stigma
European Network for Workplace Health Promotion Contemporary English speaking media and popular medical discourses on Covid-19 have been notable in their stigmatization of fatness by implicitly and ex…
Technologies of Representation: Possibilities of Social Media in Tarlabaşı, Istanbul
Image posted by Selahaddin Abi on Facebook “Every week somebody comes here to take photos of our laundry and put it up on the internet. Today, I took…
Everything You Thought You Knew about Orphans in Africa Is Probably Wrong
Policy makers, development workers, orphanage voluntourists, missionaries, prospective adoptive parents: ignore this book at your peril. “AIDS orphans” are commonly imagined as the…
Do All African Immigrants Arrive Sick, Desperate, and Empty-Handed on the Shores of Europe? Ask Pamela Feldman-Savelsberg!
The lives, status, and image of immigrants may constitute the single-most urgent human issue of our time. In an arresting and captivating new study of Cameroonian mothers now…
An Anthropologist at the Women’s March on Washington, Part 1: Finding Communitas, Feminist Style
(photo by Alma Gottlieb) The doors of our metro car opened and closed, opened and closed with increasingly alarming dysfunction. On any other day, the many more dozens…
It’s Never “Just a Symbol”
Symbolic anthropologists, take note. What’s in a symbol? Everything, when it comes to politics. Especially, election-year politics. And especially when a major political candidate claims ign…
Donald Trump vs. Blood Magic
Donald Trump has revived old stereotypes in claiming that Fox News commentator/Republican debate moderator Megyn Kelly was ruled by her hormones (“bleeding from her wherever”) when she cri…
Fabulous Art from Abandoned Flip-flops
Cleaning up beach waste in the form of abandoned rubber flip-flops . . . recycling landfill-able castoffs . . . training low-income men and women in job skills and…
Social Change: One Petition at a Time?
As a high school student, I remember the excitement of going door-to-door to solicit signatures on petitions of various sorts. Adding one’s name to a list of other…
Are We Stuck in the ‘Fifties?
This set of fourteen offensively sexist ads from the 1950s is so over-the-top, it’s easy to dismiss them, relegating them to a “Thank goodness we’re beyond this and…