Fear of/in the Ethnography
Dr Tarek Younis is cultural psychologist with a PhD/PsyD in Clinical Psychology. He is an Honorary Research Associate at University College London. His British Academy postdoctoral fellowship was…
Tag: research
Blockchain Reactions: The peril and promise of techno-governance for stateless Rohingya
While Myanmar’s recent ethnic cleansing of its Rohingya minority, which saw 800,000 people driven into Bangladesh, has brought the community’s oppression to the world’s attention, it has also…
Fear of/in the Ethnography
Dr Tarek Younis is cultural psychologist with a PhD/PsyD in Clinical Psychology. He is an Honorary Research Associate at University College London. His British Academy postdoctoral fellowship was…
Students as laboratory labor
What is the role of students in universities? There are ongoing contentious debates and campus protests about whether graduate students should be considered employees with the right to…
Ep. #40 Robot Reflections: Inger Mewburn on researching researchers & welcoming our robot overlords
“Machine learning is a broad area of study, and that’s one thing you don’t see from a distance, is how broad it is. We like to do what…
White Fans, Liberal Ideologies, and the Erasure of Black Stories in Gaming
Last month, the highly anticipated video game Mortal Kombat 11 (MK11) was released to an excited yet wary fighting game community. Game studio NetherRealm’s newest incarnation received praise…
Born to Be Cute: Charisma and Niche Construction
As a multispecies ethnographer and evolutionary anthropologist, I am interested in the ways in which ecological interaction between various taxa affects their selection pressures and evolutionary traj…
The Story of a Mass Shooting Survivor and Anthropologist
On April 30, my Liberal Studies class, framed as Anthropology and Philosophy of Science (Syllabus), was the site of a horrific event. Two of my students were…
Meet nitrous oxide: the fun drug that, because of prohibition, is terrible for the environment
The War on Drugs is an expensive, harmful disaster. It’s the most destructive and racist set of policies that exist in the modern era. But! Did you know that…
A Fieldpoem for World Poetry Day
How we practice and write ethnography matters. Poetry is one way to understand what it feels like to be human at a particular time and place. The difference…
Towards a Queer Art of Surveillance in South Korea
Editor’s Note: This post was co-written with Timothy Gitzen. When is a face not a face? With the launch of the iPhone X that boasts facial recognition capabilities,…
When your research is attacked
Attacks on research have become routinized and institutionalized. Here is our step-by-step guide on what to do if you and your research are attacked.
#CollectiveLetter Against the Eradication of Polish Anthropology
Allegra Lab asks its readers to please consider giving their signatures to a collective letter we have drafted to the Minister of Science and Higher Education in Poland,…
Infrastructure after disasters
On October 21, 1868, at approximately eight o’clock in the morning, a major earthquake on the Hayward Fault near Oakland, California shook the Bay Area. The earthquake caused…
Sexbuyer laws: War on clients, says Israeli MP
Sexbuyer laws now exist in eight countries at the national level: Israel, France, Canada, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden. I use the term sexbuyer laws because in…
Tweaking Narratives of War
Este contenido está disponible en español aquí. Stories of war and violence have permeated the daily life of Colombians for more than half a century. However, in the…
Do We Inherit Abandoned Game Worlds?
When you’re playing an online game and it gets shut down, typically a message flashes on the screen that says something like: “You have been disconnected from the…
Decolonizing Primatology: Part I
We all have texts that are formative in our academic, professional, spiritual, personal, mental, and philosophical lives. There are a few books that I can point to as…
Sugar Cane in Bolsonaro’s Brazil
When now Brazilian president-elect Jair Bolsonaro promised during his campaign to withdraw from the Paris climate accord, putting development ahead of environmental protection, many in the agribusines…
A Feeling for Robotic Skin
Ethnographic explorations with sex dolls, robots, and their makers “I hate it when her eyes flick open. This one, her eyeballs sometimes go in different directions and it…
Inhabiting Public Space: Guerrilla Music on YouTube
Este contenido está disponible en español aquí. *Many of the names and places mentioned below have been changed.* While the FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia or Revolutionary…
Dis/ability to do Fieldwork
Rine Vieth is a PhD candidate at McGill University in Tio’tia:ke/Montréal, Canada. They are currently researching how UK asylum tribunals consider religion and conversion, with a focus on…
Art, neuroscience and ethnography
Neuroscience The brain is a wild and wonderful thing. Even in a damaged, broken, or diseased state, it performs wonders. Oliver Sacks, neurologist and prolific writer, knew this…
Ep. #23 Decolonizing anthropology, with Sana Ashraf and Bruma Rios-Mendoza: this month on TFS
“We think we are supposed to be comfortable. As long as we are trying to do everything to be comfortable, we will never make a change.” In this…