In Spain, Scapegoating Spikes During the Pandemic
An anthropologist and a Rroma activist investigate the rise in prejudice and abuse toward Rroma people during the COVID-19 crisis. ✽ During the first wave of the pandemic,…
Tag: power
An Archaeology of Personhood and Abortion
Opinions about fetal personhood and abortion have fluctuated enormously throughout history and differ in surprising ways between cultures. ✽ After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade…
Peeling Back the Myth of a “White” Midwest
The popular image of the U.S. heartland as only a place of rural, hardworking white farmers has always been a larger-than-life myth. In a new book, Imagining the…
We All Love Roses
SAPIENS Poet-in-Residence Jason Vasser-Elong reflects on horrific cycles of violence—and highlights injustices that are often papered over. We All Love Roses – Listen Some say it’s human nature…
Wisdom From the Winding Path
An anthropologist dreams of his work with Songhay sorcerers in Niger and of French poet Edmond Jabès, fictionalizing conversations and experiences to polish nuggets of wisdom for our…
Wisdom From the Winding Path
[no caption] Frans Lemmens/Getty Images Excerpted from Paul Stoller’s essay “Jabès Amongst Songhay Sorcerers” in Philosophy on Fieldwork: Case Studies in Anthropological Analysis, e…
Emanuel Moss takes the Page 99 test
On the 99th page of my dissertation, “The Objective Function: Science and Society in the Age of Machine Intelligence”, the first full paragraph describes how machine learning researchers…
Crystal Worl’s Countermural Tells a Different History of Alaska
Her dark gray eyes scan the horizon. An iridescent golden sun and stars encircle her head, flanked on one side by a cobalt sockeye salmon and the other…
The Same Old Song and Dance: Nothing Has Been Done to Reduce Mass Shootings
We are only a few days removed from the horrific mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, TX where nearly two dozen people were murdered in cold…
Indigenous Mapmaking, or Bringing a Dead Map to Life
Two Indigenous Marind clan representatives peruse a map of their customary territories produced by local village members. Sophie Chao Excerpted from In the Shadow of the Palms: More-Than-…
What Kenya’s Killer Cops Reveal About Police Culture
On July 7, 2021, Nairobi residents marched to protest police brutality and harassment, particularly against poor people. The date also commemorates demonstrations against authoritarian rule that …
Was the Acropolis a Harem? A Myth of Orientalism
The Acropolis of Athens has birthed countless tales, some of which appear to be more based on fiction than fact. Oleksandr Troitskyi/Wikimedia Commons This article was originally publishe…
Predominantly White Institutions’ Overtures to Black Students OR This Is What They Tell You Without Telling You
Enslaved people built the Rotunda at the University of Virginia in the 19th century. Chrispecoraro/Getty Images Go to undergrad, go to graduate school, get a Ph.D. heft onto…
Multispecies Anarchism in the Postnuclear World
Connect the dots between “state”, “imperialism”, and “war”. Add “leaders”, “testosterone” and “nukes”. Look at the picture and tell me anarchism was a bad idea. In effect, as…
‘Call to Arms: Silver and Lead’ Campaign Review
‘Call to Arms: Silver and Lead’ campaign review Posted December 10, 2034 by Julie Annie (staff writer at Génial Gaming) Answering the Call to Arms (yet again)…
More Than a Mountain
The sky island of Dzil Nchaa Si’an is more than a mountain. It is a significant landmark in Arizona for Apache tribal members to collect medicinal plants, perform…
#MeToo Anthropology and the Case Against Harvard
On February 4, The Harvard Crimson broke the news of an open letter, signed by 38 faculty members, in support of John Comaroff. This prominent professor of anthropology…
New expert in knowledge integration: congrats!
A word of congratulations to the freshly baked Doctor Ayonghe Akonwi Nebasifu! He just now defended successfully his PhD dissertation with the title Knowledge Integration in Co-management: A…
On the use and abuse of networks in academia
Like most anthropologists, we have been watching events unfold at Harvard University’s anthropology department over the past weeks: accusations of abuse; letters in support of the man accused…
Heritage Out of Control: Musealising (Hi)stories of Migration
Since the early 2000s, coinciding with the 40th anniversary of the recruitment agreement between Austria and Turkey in 1964, there have been increasing initiatives in Vienna that involve municipal…
Heritage out of control: Is Libation a Prayer?
Religion as Heritage in Ghana In 2009, Ghana celebrated its 52nd birthday as an independent country with the usual pomp and circumstance. The parade was held at the…
Egyptology Has a Problem: Patriarchy
Ramses II built many temples to his own divinity, like the Ramesseum in Luxor, originally called the Temple of Millions of Years to imply his reign would never…
What Egyptian Pharaohs Can Tell Us About Modern Tyrants
Using religion to justify his rule, King Taharqa is shown nestled protectively between the legs of the god Amen in his animal form, implying the king knew the…
The Hard Labor That Fuels the Hair Trade
The majority of hair that India exports comes from waste—such as the strands gathered in this picture of a street collector in Chennai. Emma Tarlo Every evening, for…