Syllabus Attack!: Dwelling on the History of Anthropology
Editors’ note: This reflection was written in conjunction with the author’s course, “History of Anthropology,” taught most recently in the 2025 spring semester at the University of Nevada,…
Tag: Reflections
2025年の桜の反射: Reflections of the 2025 cherry blossoms…
See also: https://visualanthropologyofjapan.blogspot.com/2025/04/2025-expected-beauty-and-awe-of-cherry.html See also: https://visualanthropologyofjapan.blogspot.com/2025/04/2025-na-no…
Songs of Fire and Rice: Post-Electoral Song Protests in Mozambique
A Song Namacurra onoloba nikayedhoNamacurra asks for helpFrelimo onoguliya mathaka na atxinaFrelimo is selling our lands to the ChineseNafuna minivedele manera adhouweWe want to find a way for…
IT’S TOO COMPLICATED, THEY SAY
A Reckoning in Seven Movements I. To Begin With Fire There are nights I wake with my hands curled into fists,nights when I cannot unclench my teethbecause somewhere…
Public/applied/professional anthropologists on gentrification. Reflections from Milan, Italy.
The terms public, applied and professional anthropology are not recognised, in Italy, as separate fields of work and research. Unlike other national contexts, they are often used as…
Funding the Journey: How Western Aid Became a Ticket to the Gulf
In 2011, while conducting fieldwork for my master’s thesis in the South Wollo area of Ethiopia’s Amhara region, I came across a striking paradox that has continued to…
The Unseen Workforce: Formalizing Ethiopian Seasonal Labor Migration in Sudan
El-Gedaref: A Vital Agricultural Hub Shaped by Migration Located in eastern Sudan, El-Gedaref State is an agricultural powerhouse serves as a critical crossroads for migration, particularly during regi…
The Rise of a Lone Soldier Influencer: Radicalization and Daily Life in the Context of Israel War on Gaza, 2023-2024
This paper analyzes the depiction and promotion of the most recent escalation of the Israeli war waged on Gaza and the Occupied Palestinian Territory through social media by…
Can you be a parent and an activist?
I am consumed by a difficult realization I’ve come to lately. The care my children need to be as protected as possible under the conditions of capitalism outstrips…
Dove sei, Europa?
Il 26 gennaio 2024 la Corte di Giustizia dell’Aja ha accolto la denuncia presentata dal Sudafrica e ordinato a Israele di prendere misure immediate per evitare il genocidio…
How South Africa rescued humanity (and International Law) at the International Court of Justice
Since the creation of the United Nations, and in line with the civilizing mission’s rhetoric used to justify colonialism, racist arguments about the African continent as halting, obstructing,…
Anger on the move
24 November 2023. Gaza: at least 14,854 people killed, including 6,150 children and 4,000 women; and at least 36,000 injured. At least 6,800 missing. The Al Jazeera ‘Israel–Gaza…
The Courage of Historical Truths
With the destruction of Gaza by Israel under way and the humanitarian situation in the occupied Palestinian territories worsening day by day, a recurrent question is raised in…
Gaza is not a humanitarian crisis: on self-defence, depoliticising language, and contextualisation
On Thursday evening October 26, EU member states finally agreed to a formal declaration calling for ‘humanitarian corridors and pauses’ of the shelling in Gaza. The declaration also…
Climate Change and Retreatist Anthropology
Laura Nader, in a 2013 interview (De Lauri 2013)—the message of which is no less salient today—stated: “For me anthropology is the freest of scientific endeavors because it…
AI’s Truth, Lies, and Ethos
Summary: Conversational artificial intelligence is often a form of storytelling, and underlying some of AI’s stories is an artificial ethos that could be insidious. I am a cultural…
At a turning point – climate change and the responsibilities of humanitarian actors
Climate change is going to be the game change to the humanitarian world. How? By sheer necessity. There is no other way. Otherwise, the humanitarian system will be…
Blurred lines and dead chooks in fieldwork
My own fieldwork experience, like many others, demonstrates a blurring in what is ‘professional’ and ‘personal’, what is ‘leisure’ and ‘work’, whether you are researcher, student, or known…
Ep. #27 TFS at AAA: Elevator pitches, problem labels, public anthropology, & estrangement in practice – Guest panel with Dr Esteban Gómez & Dr Carie Little Hersh
This month we bring you a special panel episode straight from the AAA (American Anthropological Association) Conference in San José, California. In this episode, our own Julia Brown…
Fear and Loathing in Atlanta
Content warning: racism, violence, mention of miscarriage. I was on my way to the airplane that would take me back home, to Canada. I boarded the train between…
Being a grad student with ADHD: An ode to constant ontological uncertainty.
[Hi. I’m back. I’m digressing from my usual topics to get a little cathartic and personal for a bit. Don’t worry, for the next post we’ll be back…
Why abstinence-only drug education doesn’t work—in fact, it backfires spectacularly.
I talked to a lot of middle-class recreational drug users for my research. None of them had any idea when they were younger that they’d end up dropping…
The intangible narcotic: What does ‘vibe’ mean, really?
There’s a term that comes up pretty frequently when talking about electronic music events. A search within my interviews (excepts from which are quoted here) and field notes…
Feelings into words: Harvest Festival Part 2
Describing, in words, what it’s like to be at a rave is one of the most difficult things I’ve had to do for my research. How can one…