Enigmas of Corporeal Justice: Surrogacy and Legality in India
Over the last two decades, India has become a popular global destination for what is commonly referred to as reproductive tourism, wherein clients travel from one part of…
Tag: research
Who Decides What We Measure in Health Tech?
At present, there are several problems in women’s health that still remain poorly characterized and understudied. In my research on one such issue, premenstrual syndrome (PMS), it is…
“Of Peccaries and People: Perception and Politics in the Texas Hill Country” RAI Anthropology and Conservation Conference Talk 2021
On October 27, I presented some of my preliminary research at the Royal Anthropological Institute’s 2021 Anthropology and Conservation conference at the “Living with Diversity in a More-t…
West African Migration: The Dangers of a Single Story
“The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.” Chimamanda Ngozi…
“Of People and Peccaries: Perception and Politics in the Texas Hill Country” Transcript (RAI Anthropology and Conservation 2021)
Presentation Slides: Of People and Peccaries PresentationDownload INTRODUCTION On my first day of fieldwork, I climbed a steep hill where my collaborator, Roger, reported a group of javelina…
Fetishes or Cyborgs? Religion as technology in the Afro-Atlantic space
(Editor’s Note: This blog post is part of the Thematic Series Data Swarms Revisited) Exú, the trickster god, Axé Ilé Oba – São Paulo (photo by Giovanna Capponi)…
The Best Laid Plans are not Birth Plans
Childbirth has had a long and winding history. This is understandable since it has literally been happening since the beginning of human time. Prior to 1950, many births…
“Legibility by Invitation”: Rohingya Refugees and the Struggle for Political Recognition
Once, in mid-August 2018 in a café tucked away in Klang Valley, Malaysia, Husin, my Rohingya research collaborator, and I sat with Fatimah, a young Rohingya woman. As…
Naming Species in Colombia’s Biodiverse Landscapes
There is a unique pair of rules on Sattins Island, in Ursula K. Le Guin’s world of Earthsea. This pair is called The Rules of Names and though…
Neoliberal Morality: Shame and Self-Improvement as Control over Young People’s Digital Productivity
“Put your phone away!” “Why are you always on your phone?” “Being on your phone this much isn’t healthy!” These are words we all have probably heard before…
Feeling Digital and Reimagining Fieldwork during COVID Times
Yichen Rao, Anna Castel & Lili Almási-Szabó* During the outbreak of COVID-19, everyday life has been modified in accordance with the protocols that every country has implemented. These…
“I’m Not an Anti-Vaxxer, I Just Don’t Want This Vaccine”: Understanding Vaccine Hesitancy among Pregnant Women
“The world isn’t made up of good people and death eaters.” -JK Rowling The world isn’t made up of people who choose to vaccinate and those who are…
Abstract: Of People and Peccaries: Perception and Politics in the Texas Hill Country
I am giving a talk in October for the Royal Anthropological Institute: https://www.therai.org.uk/conferences/anthropology-and-conservation/panels#10866 Here is the abstract for my talk based on or…
Coal, Care, and Climate change: When Things Remember What People Forget
As the US moves toward greener energy futures, how we remember coal – or do not – has significant implications for how we create more just energy transitions.…
On Drones and Ectoplasms: Breath of Gaia
(Editor’s Note: This blog post is part of the Thematic Series Data Swarms Revisited) Painting form the art project On Drones and Ectoplasms: Breath of Gaia. ©Angeliki Malakasioti…
Qualifying Exam Essay: Javelinas in SPAAAACE and Time
I have passed my qualifying exams and so am making my essays available on my blog. The other essays can be found: Attending to Animals in Anthropology and…
Qualifying Exam Essay: Power and Politics Within and Beyond the Human
I have passed my qualifying exams and so am making my essays available on my blog. The other essays can be found: Attending to Animals in Anthropology and…
Qualifying Exam Essay: Attending to Animals in Anthropology
I have passed my qualifying exams and so am making my essays available on my blog. The other essays can be found: Power and Politics Within and Beyond…
Community-Based Research is Hard, and Worth It
The Salt Spring Dollar I began studying the Salt Spring dollar (SSD), a community currency used on Salt Spring Island, British Columbia, Canada, for my May-August MA fieldwork…
My Most Recent Publication on Faculty and Student Mental Health
You can read the article here: “Mental health in academia: Hacks for cultivating and sustaining wellbeing” Johnson and Lester 2021
Harnessing Indeterminacy: The Technopolitics of Hydrocarbon Prospects
A drillship in the sea. Resource: Unsplash. Amidst an international crisis sparked by the scandalous confessions of a mafia boss and a pollution and climate change-triggered marine disaster…
Fieldwork Diary July 8-9, 2021
I am conducting research across Texas on Human and javelina relations. I am interested in how humans and other animals negotiate space at sites of encounter. During this…
Listening to Your Gut
By Senske de Vries Before the thesis-period actually started I was somewhat hesitant about how this would be. I had heard from others that they hated working on…
Knowledge Production, Toxic Corporate Capital, and the Anthropologist’s Entangled Ethics
The dominant disciplinary literature on cultures and practices of extractivism relies on a separation of “the field,” and the insights gained there, from our professional lives as anthropologists…