Tackling Timelessness
Timelessness is cruel because it is dehumanizing. As a mad anthropologist who researches madness, I have spent considerable time tackling timelessness. Timelessness is the name I have given…
Tag: Section News
Black Removal in South Central Los Angeles
This conversation takes place with two ethnographers of Los Angeles: Juli Grigsby is an assistant professor of anthropology at Haverford College, who researches Black women’s political subjectivity, v…
Brazil’s National Museum Fire
On September 2, a hot Sunday in Central Brazil, I saw the incredible images of an enormous fire rapidly consuming the National Museum of Brazil—a building that is…
Reclaiming a Broken Future for the Past
The revolution in information and communications technologies, which had so much promise for broadening access and participation in scholarship, certainly seems much darker and more ominous now. Socia…
For the Love of Football
After sitting through exactly 70 minutes of meetings and film-watching, the players made their way out to the practice field by 8:30 a.m., equipped in pads and helmets.…
Creators of the Contemporary in Africa
In Ghana, the creative culture and the contemporary art sphere is in a period of exponential growth and reconfiguration. Across Accra and Kumasi, the contemporary creative scene has…
Dancing with the Spirits
In a present colored by forces of globalization and the Anthropocene, Masewal dancers reconnect with their spiritual landscape to visualize alternative futures. Mexico today is gripped by a…
Biocommensurations
Psychiatry is in crisis because it failed to integrate symptom classifications with biomarkers. Its future depends on finding new ways of bringing disparate insights together. Any kind of…
Ambivalent Spaces in the (Neo)Liberal Arts
How do we respond to the pressure to become responsibilized faculty members in today’s market-driven college context? What is the future of anthropology at liberal arts colleges in…
Written in Blood
How my research on DNA ancestry tests became fake news. When I was sent a link to a Snopes article asking, “Did DNA Testing Companies Admit to Altering…
Transgender Latina Activism in the Current Political Moment
The current political administration poses numerous threats to various minoritized communities in the United States. Anti-Latinx and transphobic sentiments and policy actions are on the rise. Given t…
#Adulting and the Disordered State of American Adulthood
[pquote]It is a word apt for the state of social adulthood in the US, where a long-eroding set of markers from the twentieth century are collapsing into a…
Gone Ice Fishing!
AN has gone to Yorkshire, UK and Milwaukee, WI. We wish you a peaceful and enjoyable holiday period. See you in January 2018! Fancy a spot of anthropology…
What’s in Your Annual Meeting Bag?
Over the summer, AN asked anthropologists what they pack in their field bags. This time, anthropologists share what they’ve packed for the AAA Annual Meeting. Oguz Alyanak Three items stand out…
We’re at the AAA Annual Meeting!
AN is at the Annual Meeting in Washington, DC this week. We are covering events from panels to installations to gallery sessions and more. Check out the website…
Colonialism’s Orchestrated Disasters in Puerto Rico
“María, María, perdí la esperanza, María, María, perdí la esperanza.” I am reminded of these lyrics from the bomba group, Yuba Iré, when I see the pictures and…
Close Encounters of a Hairy Kind
Hair is something we think we know. Growing spontaneously from our heads, demanding attention throughout our lives, it is intrinsically bound up with our identities and biographies, our…
When Black Boy Joy and STEM Don’t Mix
As a kindergartner with Black boy joy, Carter excitedly began public school wanting to become a scientist. Carter considered scientists “some of the smartest people on earth,” because…
The Storm After Maria
Puerto Rican Aftermath Puerto Ricans are US citizens. Puerto Rico is a colony. The tensions encompassed by these two facts were extremely clear in the federal response to…
Ask Me about My Science
Curious public means many opportunities for biological anthropologists willing to speak up I once took a cast of a Neandertal skull with me on a research trip, packing…
Here’s the Rub on the Dove Skincare Ad
The latest rendition of “sorry, not sorry” is not just topping the Billboard charts. It is also a public relations anthem about “missing the mark.” This time, Dove…
Deterritorializing Chinatown in Digital Tokyo
Editors’ Note: This article is part of the series Digital Anthropologies in East Asia. [pquote]The growth in digital forms of sociality and their intersection with new mobilities has ensured…
Agents of Humor?
Students in Russia and Ukraine address global politics through local comedy Kostya, brow wrinkling, ended his call and told the team of rehearsing students, “Vova said he heard…
Political Correctness is Not the Problem, Systemic Racism Is
In recent years, we have witnessed a resurgence of student protests on college campuses in the US and beyond. Many of these protests, inspired by broader contemporary social…