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…
Tag: research
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…
Aging in a Digitalized World: Beyond a User/Non-User Framework*
Sophie Colas** Engagement with digital technology takes numerous, often very abstract and tenuous forms that sometimes involve the intervention of other people. Such multiple engagement with digit…
Swarming Syphilis: On the Reality of Data
(Editor’s Note: This blog post is part of the Thematic Series Data Swarms Revisited) Treponema pallidum spirochetes under microscope using a modified Steiner silver stain. Obtained from the…
Land, Property, Technology: Exploring Blockchain as Infrastructural Promise
A view from the Rift Valley escarpment, illustrating a landscape that far exceeds official registries. Photo by author. In my work, I explore the ways in which blockchain…
Angelology and Technoscience
(Editor’s Note: This blog post is part of the Thematic Series Data Swarms Revisited) Scene of angels at Karlskirche, Vienna, Austria (Photo by Lukas Meier on Unsplash) The…
My Reflections Two Years After Surviving a Classroom Shooting
Today marks two years since a classroom shooting happened while teaching my final class at University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Six students were shot, two of which…
How Can You Approach the Field Digitally? Reflections on Using Social Media Profiles in Ethnographic Research*
Simone Pfeifer** Smartphone. Image by Ulf Neumann. As contact restrictions tightened last year with the developing pandemic, ever more colleagues began asking me for advice on “how t…
Restorying Ma’ohi Nui with Island Lives, Ocean States
Vehia Wheeler introduces the Ma’ohi Nui project, a collaboration with the Island Lives, Ocean States project aiming to uplift voices, knowledge and perspectives on the ocean among indigenous…
The Shifting Borders of Value: Water and Wellbeing along the U.S.-Mexico Border
Is access to water a right? Should water be free? Have you ever stopped to ask yourself that? This is exactly what surrounds the discourse of water use…