Anthropology is Taking Over the World
The first clue that anthropology is taking over the world is in the March 2015 issue of American Anthropologist, where Virginia Dominguez writes that she is Taking Over…
Tag: politics
15. Location technologists: the politics of digital media in a ‘special region’ of Indonesia
Chapter proposal to Location Technologies in International Context, Rowan Wilken (Swinburne Uni of Tech), Gerard Goggin (U of Sydney) & Heather Horst (RMIT), eds. John Postill RMIT University…
Killing People is Always Wrong (Andrew Chan & Myuran Sukumaran)
Indonesia is about to execute two Australian men, Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, for trafficking drugs. They were arrested in 2005 after a tip-off from the Australian police,…
Workshop note on digital media and socio-political change
By Victor Lasa On 20 February 2015, Dr John Postill convened a workshop with fellow RMIT scholars and research students around the topic of “Digital media and socio-political…
Annual Review of Anthropology, Climate Change, Anthropocene
This is a guest post by Sean Seary, a Hartwick College graduate interested in understanding human interactions with biological and social environments, and how anthropology can use that…
Riots, Rage and Populism: Voices from the Austere City
Greetings from Naples. Photo by Maurizio Albahari. Pope Francis for President. It’s the latest provocation of Italian comedy sketches, but it generates bitter laughter. It speaks to the…
Privilege, Empathy And Politics
According to anthropologist Barbara King, one alternative to the 2014 Merriam-Webster Dictionary word of the year “culture” is “privilege.” For the political anthropologist, Pr…
Charlie Hebdo
Let’s say some guy in a bar starts mouthing off against another patron’s mother. He says she’s a fat moose with a ginger beard, and it’s funny…
hope: the first anthropological emotion
During the comments from the Anthropology and Storytelling panel at the #AAA2014 meetings: “The first anthropological emotion is hope” (Carole McGranahan). As McGranahan clarified in a fol…
乌镇时代 | Wuzhen Times
The first World Internet Conference was held November 19-21, in the scenic water village of Wuzhen (proudly endorsed by 7,000 years of history). English-language tech bloggers and news…
Cultures of Dependency
fundamental social change is hard to achieve because cultures of dependency are deeply entrenched in the local political culture. In political theories of social change like Marxism, under…
“humans just like us” (Michel-Rolph Trouillot 2003:137)
Reading Michel-Rolph Trouillot’s final chapter in Global Transformations, “Making Sense: The Fields in which We Work” and reflecting on what I’ve been teaching in Cultural Anth…
About Progress
Last Saturday, I published a post in Norwegian about the populist Progress Party, currently a junior partner in a Conservative-led government around here. It hadn’t occurred to me that…
About Progress
Last Saturday, I published a post in Norwegian about the populist Progress Party, currently a junior partner in a Conservative-led government around here. It hadn’t occurred to me…
About Progress
Last Saturday, I published a post in Norwegian about the populist Progress Party, currently a junior partner in a Conservative-led government around here. It hadn’t occurred to me…
Abu Nidal and his children
Some years ago, I found myself in the passenger seat of a car trying to make its way through the city centre of Lahore. The traffic was confusing.…
Abu Nidal and his children
Some years ago, I found myself in the passenger seat of a car trying to make its way through the city centre of Lahore. The traffic was confusing.…
Abu Nidal and his children
Some years ago, I found myself in the passenger seat of a car trying to make its way through the city centre of Lahore. The traffic was confusing.…
Invest your emotion elsewhere
People tend to call me a rationalist, and that's not really something I have a problem with. I don't think philosophical ideas should be a matter of identity…
The Kids are more than all right
Both are seventeen. They are too young to vote in places like the US. But we need more of them! Malala! All around the world people know this…
The Return of the Colonial
What logic connects Ferguson, Gaza and east Port of Spain? What cultural logics connect recent confrontations in Ferguson, Gaza, and east Port of Spain? The short answer is…
Jared Diamond and Future Public Anthropology
It was an honor and pleasure to be discussant for Margaret Mead and Jared Diamond: Past Publics, Current Engagements, organized by Alex Golub for the 2013 American Anthropological…
berners-lee on snowden
It’s been almost eight years that I ↵last quoted ↑Sir Timothy Berners-Lee, the inventor of the Web, here at xirdalium. On 1st August 2006 I republished the following…
Keti Koti 2014 – Celebration, Protest, Commemoration
“The chains are cut” (Keti Koti in Surinamese – Sranantongo) is the Emancipation Day, in which the end of slavery in Suriname is remembered (legally 1963, de facto…