Does “Reasonable” = “Racist”?
What can anthropology contribute to the critical conversation about race in America, following the welcome jury decision in the Derek Chauvin trial? After they amassed and presented a…
Tag: Social activism
Long Past Time for the 25th Amendment*
There will be plenty of time for Biden to use his extraordinary faith and energy and creativity to think about how this divided nation might be healed. For…
When Women’s Laughter Keeps Men in Line
Among the Mbendjele gathering-hunting people who live in the Republic of Congo, “women’s laughter manages to keep men in line.” Drawing from ethnographic research by Jerome Lewis, anthropo…
Doing Development the Right Way: A Conversation with Charles Piot
Anthropologist Charlie Piot has been conducting research on the political economy and history of rural West Africa for over thirty years. His first book, Remotely Global: Village Modernity…
Everything You Thought You Knew about Orphans in Africa Is Probably Wrong
Policy makers, development workers, orphanage voluntourists, missionaries, prospective adoptive parents: ignore this book at your peril. “AIDS orphans” are commonly imagined as the…
Poems about Refugees
Adrie Kusserow is one of an increasing number of anthropologist-poets. Or maybe more anthropologist-poets are just willing to come out of hiding. Either way, I was delighted to…
An Anthropologist at the Women’s March on Washington, Part 2: The Posters
Photo by Alma Gottlieb Women (and some men) with signs, as far as the eye could see. In my first post about the Women’s March of…
An Anthropologist at the Women’s March on Washington, Part 1: Finding Communitas, Feminist Style
(photo by Alma Gottlieb) The doors of our metro car opened and closed, opened and closed with increasingly alarming dysfunction. On any other day, the many more dozens…