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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
[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…
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…
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…
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…
I’ve found it highly interesting to hear drug users trash talk other drugs, even while they’re high on their own preferred substance. Gina* thinks that alcohol is the…
The experience of getting inside Sound Academy for Armin van Buuren was the low point of the night. After an evening of rain and dancing at the electronic…
Most of what I knew about psytrance (psychedelic trance) raves before I actually went to one came from this article in Vice: Psytrance really is a counter-culture in…
Sunglasses in the darkness. White shorts, no shirt. Perspiration shining on his skin in the wild, flashing lights. A familiar-looking backpack on his shoulders, strapped over his muscular…