Digital Food Activism – a book review by Michelle Pentecost
Digital Food Activism Tanja Schneider, Karin Eli, Catherine Dolan and Stanley Ulijaszek (eds.) Routledge Series in Critical Food Studies, 2018, 234 pages A Swiss academic scans the…
Tag: politics
Congosa politics: Rumours and elections in Sierra Leone, by Diana Szanto
The red party. APC political rally in Freetown Congosa in Krio means gossiping and spreading rumour, but its connotations are much darker than in English. It equals with name…
The Limits of Academic Freedom
We need to acknowledge the role we all play in silencing research. Consider the times we have dismissed a colleague’s idea because it ‘isn’t worth it’, or immediately…
On Thinking with People and their Escapes: A Review of Unfinished through Storytelling by Onur Günay
Unfinished: The Anthropology of Becoming João Biehl and Peter Locke, editors Duke University Press, 2017. 400 pages. If hierarchy is the key to sociological knowledge production, what…
Italy’s populist alliance and the national anti-migrant consensus
The League’s Matteo Salvini and the Five Star’s Luigi Di Maio have entered into coalition to form a government in Italy [AP] You can read my latest piece…
Venezuela & Anthropology
Will Venezuela Recover? As Venezuela holds elections on 20 May 2018, questions of “Will Venezuela recover?” or “Will Venezuela collapse?” arise. When seen in a regional context…
#Review: Working the System
Working the System is a great book. It holds the promise of its subtitle and offers a deep ‘political ethnography of the new Angola’. Through rich ethnographic snippets…
Diaspora, Gender & Mediated Revolution
In several relatively recent papers (2017, 2015a, 2015b) I’ve made the point that for tens of millions of Egyptians, the uprisings of 2011 weren’t something they physically experienced…
party -stay or go?
Rosa writing to Henriette Roland Holst, August 2011 is firm, chastising and correct, and it seems effective, Holst forms a new group which later enters the SPD, although…
Starbucks Enlightenment
Image credit: “Starbucks, Race and ‘Corporate’ Anthropology,” CFM Public Affairs Blog (March 2015). Is Anthropology better than Starbucks? In late March 2018, anthropology rais…
We suck at (academic) politics
Ninety percent of the time if you were to read a blog post about academics and politics it would be a rant about “identity politics.” This isn’t going…
#Podcast Interview Round Up: The Best of March
This month’s round up of the best anthropology podcasts brought to you in collaboration with the ever amazing New Books in Anthropology features motorcycles, Catalonians, sex work and the truth.…
Burning bookshops is the new face of fascism, draped in a flag, and making America hate again.
Andy Zee talk worth hearing. The Joy of bookshops. I love it. They mean it – as he says, the place is named “revolution AND books”. Although a…
Can you imagine? Reflections on the SL elections and implications for penal policy and practice, by Andrew Jefferson and Luisa Schneider
Sierra Leone has a new president. And despite being challenged prior to the elections, the two party-system dominated once again. After two five-year terms under Ernest Bai Koroma…
What if people stop funding the U.S.?
What happens if the US runs out of money? This post is a part of a series examining the possibility of a rather quick US collapse, rather than…
Marching for Science w/Valorie Aquino – This Anthro Life
On this episode of This Anthro Life, hosts Ryan Collins and Adam Gamwell are joined by TAL correspondent and guest host Astrid Countee and by a very special…
Collapse and/or Authoritarianism
When will US Government Collapse? This post on “When will US Government Collapse?” is part of a series examining the possibility that rather than a slow, processual decline…
What should you do?
(if the United States collapses, that is) This series has been examining the question of When will the United States collapse? The decline of US hegemony is usually…
When will the US Stock Market Collapse?
As in the previous post on When will the United States collapse?, I’ve been working on a draft of this for a couple months. So I might have…
When will the United States collapse?
As of 4 April 2018, I had been working on a draft of this post on “when will the United States collapse” for a month or so. I…
Patrick Neveling and Tijo Salverda: How capitalists think—about belonging, moralities, global entanglements, and historical social processes, for example
Given that nowadays most people live in societies organized according to capitalist principles and given that few oppose those principles fundamentally, capitalists may well constitute the world’s lar…
Fragile Security or Fatale Liaisons? Reflections on 2 March 2018 Attacks in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, by Sten Hagberg
On Friday 2 March 2018 around 10 o’clock, two coordinated of terrorist attacks took place in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso. The first attack involved gunmen seeking…
Jostling for power: Sierra Leone’s election runoff, by Luisa Enria and Jamie Hitchen
After six days of patiently waiting, during which 25% increments of Sierra Leone’s 7 March presidential vote were gradually released, on the evening of 13 March, chair of…
Reaching Out, Looking In: On Research, Refusal, and Responsibility by Tess Lanzarotta
The papers in this series, “Critical Histories, Activist Futures,” have captured some of the exciting conversations that took place during a conference titled “Critical Histories, Activist Futures: Sc…