Coastal Eden
A poet interrogates the garden of Eden origin story by reimagining it against the backdrop of East Africa’s coastal environment. Coastal Eden – Listen in the evening, frangipani…
Tag: Religion
Afterlives of revolution: Alice Wilson’s response
I first visited the Dhufar region of southern Oman in 2013. I was soon to learn that some residents were discussing the future of the exiled former opposition…
For the Love of Cats in Turkey
On a visit to feline-friendly Turkey, an anthropologist considers what long-standing practices of caring for cats reveal about human societies. ✽ While visiting eastern Turkey to climb Mount…
Easter gardens and Christmas trees
By Fridus Steijlen – When I arrived in mid-January in Ambon for my second year at Pattimura University I saw Christmas and New Year decor on the streets,…
Religion has left the hospital: the uneasy silence of professionalization
By Peter Versteeg – Have you ever wondered why something happened to you? I hope you haven’t because this question often arises when people are faced with something…
Being LGBTQ+ in U.S. Protestant Churches
As homophobic and transphobic rhetoric sweeps the U.S., some churches are increasingly welcoming LGBTQ+ parishioners who participate in religious life and help reconcile Christianity with a spectrum o…
Weaving Stories: Two Women Speak
Author and poet Sia Figiel and activist and anthropologist Doris Tulifau share their stories of being Samoan women. They also discuss the violence and challenges they’ve faced and…
The Vibrant Worlds of Batuan Paintings in Bali
A new multimedia project connects the development of a Balinese regional painting style with anthropologists Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson, who began commissioning art in the region in…
Into the Light
Christianity and colonization deeply reshaped Samoan culture starting in the 1830s, complicating how anthropologists Margaret Mead and Derek Freeman saw the Pacific Islands. The first Christian missi…
Hoy no voy a creer en Dios: sólo quiero bailar
Read Time:7 Minute, 52 Second Rubén Blasco Rubén Blasco «La danza es la forma más antigua de oración» Bernhard Wosien Los derviche…
Funeral for an Embryo
On a freezing February morning, I pulled my rental car into the small parking lot behind a sprawling Minnesota church. I had flown halfway across the country to…
What Ancient Egyptians Knew About Meteorites—Long Before Modern Astronomers
An Egyptologist’s study of hieroglyphic texts has revealed that ancient Egyptians likely understood the celestial origins of iron-rich meteorites. ✽ “(The king) Unis seizes the sky and splits…
Rebuilding Community: Displaced Women and the Making of a Shia Ismaili Muslim Sociality – review
In Rebuilding Community: Displaced Women and the Making of a Shia Ismaili Muslim Sociality, Shenila Khoja-Moolji recounts how Ismaili women, displaced from East Pakistan and East Africa in the 1970s,…
Duties of Care, Servicing Debt
What better place could there be to think about the interconnections between service, duty and care than the Venetian Palazzo Vendramin dei Carmini? The palazzo is a 17th…
The Water of Our Gods: How Protecting a Psychedelic Cactus and Local Water Created a Popular Environmental Movement in Mexico
By Salvador Contreras § Havaiko’s safe return to his family was a stroke of luck. In a village nestled in the Wixárika Sierra of Western Mexico, Havaiko and…
What Happens When Catholic Medals Become Mainstream Jewelry
Retailers are selling medallions cherished by Catholics who favor conservative gender roles. Are secular buyers sporting anti-feminist symbols? ✽ The online retailer Awe Inspired Jewelry offers a God…
Section Three: Understanding as Resonance
Introduction: Understanding as Resonance Aja Smith and Anne Line Dalsgård In this third section of the thread, Understanding as Resonance, the essays explore that which happens when words…
Book Review | Native Bias: Overcoming Discrimination Against Immigrants by Donghyun Danny Choi et al.
In Native Bias: Overcoming Discrimination Against Immigrants, Donghyun Danny Choi, Mathias Poertner and Nicholas Sambanis present the results of field work experiments conducted in Germany to understa…
Why Nahua Pilgrims Carry Thousands of Papers Up Sacred Peaks
Along mountain pilgrimages, two anthropologists learn how an Indigenous Mesoamerican religion helps people practice a reciprocal relationship with the Earth. Based on Pilgrimage to Broken Mountain: Na…
“T”
A poet-anthropologist celebrates how the Orring people of southeastern Nigeria conceptualize the origins—and workings—of the cosmos. “T” is part of the collection Indigenizing What It Mean…
Zwanzig Jahre Irakkrieg. Ein Land auf der Suche nach dem Staat
Was sind die Grundlagen eines politischen Systems? Nach dem Sturz von Saddam Hussein sollte die Teilung der Macht zwischen Schia und Sunna dem Irak Frieden und Demokratie garantieren.…
Entre el bautismo y el destierro
Read Time:10 Minute, 34 Second Bautismo o destierro. Esas fueron las únicas opciones que afrontaron los mudéjares del Reino de Gra…
Should Paviland’s Red Lady “Come Home”?
Two archaeologists explore the complicated story of 33,000-year-old human remains—and calls for their repatriation to Wales. This article was originally published at The Conversation and has been rep…
Revolution, Reform, Umkehr: Der Fall Iran
Trotz brutaler Repression halten die Proteste im Iran weiterhin an. Der herrschende Klerus kann die „Massen“ nicht mehr hinter sich sammeln, wie er das seit dem 18. Jahrhundert…