Government Of, By, and For the Trolls
Countering Trump begins by recognizing his role as troller-in-chief. The United States and the world have now spent two years trying to figure out how to deal with…
Tag: Top News
Fighting America, One iPhone at a Time
Boycotts, illusions and the making of the new Turkey Find it absurd. Find it irrational. But while those infuriated with Nike in the United States were busy cutting…
Top Articles of 2018
As the year winds down, Anthropology News rounds up our most popular articles of 2018. From critical reflections on the discipline and experiences of it, to grappling with…
Upon This Break, I Build My House
[pquote]There is a way that we exist among ourselves, nestled securely into our knowing, oyster knives in hand. [/pquote]I have a quite uncomfortable visceral reaction when I am…
Mukbang is Changing Digital Communications
How a global internet phenomenon is foreshadowing the effects of virtual reality and changing the way strangers connect online. Sitting in a home office filled with stuffed…
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…
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…
Taking Care on Veterans Day
An anthropologist reflects on conducting research as an “insider” to the veteran population. Kreisten Downs For me, Veterans Day produces contrasting and sometimes painful emotions. Yet for others,…
An Anthropologist in Silicon Valley
Reflections on a career tackling some of the critical workplace challenges of our time. I could not have imagined when I entered the PhD program in anthropology at…
Greetings from Silicon Beach
Does technology mean something different when it leaves the Valley and goes to the Beach? In the summer of 2016, during preliminary fieldwork in California, I met with…
Affective Landscapes of the Past and Present in Santa Clara
Long-term residents’ experiences of technological disruption and resilience are an untold yet essential part of the Silicon Valley story. In May 2018, I spoke with Tom, an elderly…
Disrupting Silicon Valley’s Stories
In a climate of pervasive narratives of wealth creation and success, how can anthropology hold corporate and tech sectors to account? In March 2014, Business Insider published the…
Mapping Dispossession, Mapping Affect
How Silicon Valley’s wealth produces uneven impacts throughout the region. Silicon Valley is a geographic region, shorthand for all things tech, the global hub of the technology industry,…
Navigating Silicon Valley’s Contradictions
Silicon Valley’s workers must maneuver their way through this place of diversity and discrimination, capitalist aims, and countercultural aspirations. You can spot the extremes on the street in…
Roxana Wales
Roxana Wales, recently retired, is a respected corporate ethnographer and research scientist. She was one of the first anthropologists to begin working on corporate ethnographic projects and she…
A Demagogue’s Words Matter
Trump’s immigration metaphors set a divisive tone from the top. Trump wields demagogic rhetoric like a marketing tool, ramping up prejudicial appeals in the closing days of the…
HHS Transgender Proposal a Shabby Costume
Implementing the Department of Health and Human Services’ proposed definition of sex as “either male or female, unchangeable, and determined by the genitals that a person is born…
What Can Witchcraft Do in Mexico?
Although it rarely results in accusations, violence, or exclusion, witchcraft has implications for relations of power and authority in Mexican Catholicism. In late September 2017, in the quiet…
Speaking with Silence
Silence can be a powerful communicative tool in today’s political landscape. Words take center stage in the verbal sparring of the Twitter age. Against the backdrop of Trumpian…
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…
AAA Resources on Ethics and Professional Responsibility
[pquote] The MPAAC Ethics Representatives work closely with the AAA Ethics Advisory Group to field member queries about ethically difficult situations. [/pquote] We devote this month’s MPAAC column…
What Can Fossils Tell Us about Early Human Diets?
We may never know the intricate details of early human diets—and sometimes, different lines of evidence can seem contradictory. Happy National Fossil Day! Fossils are among the most…
White Patriarchy Gets a Pacifier
In the era of #MeToo, we need collective liberation, not the tears and tantrums of white male entitlement. In less than the time it takes you to read…
Raising Health Expectations for Schizophrenia Patients
People living with chronic illness and medication also manage their health in experimental and often quite ordinary ways. Blood tests, echocardiograms, waist measurements, and body weigh-ins comprise…