Turkey Votes
The Turkish referendum could extend President Erdoğan’s one-man rule. A piece of bicolored paper. On the left is printed EVET (YES), in black font over a white background,…
Tag: Top News
Call for Proposals: Why Will You March for Science
Will you be at the March for Science on April 22? If so, AN would like to hear from you! March organizers describe the event as “the first…
Dream Factories in the Time of War
On Sunday, February 26, 2017, the Arab world held elections—anyone who had access to a cell phone and wanted to pay the extra fee to send an SMS…
Cities as Migrant Emplacement
São Paulo rappers are remaking the cultural space of the city. We’ve joined forces with AAA’s public education initiative “World on the Move: 100,000 Years of Human Migration”…
Six Ways Anthropologists Can Challenge White Supremacy
Recently, white supremacists attempted to defame Boasian Anthropology and its historic role in challenging scientific racism. This article proposes some concrete steps by which to challenge whiteness …
Latin America’s Gender Ideology Explosion
What’s been called part of the “global war” to destroy marriage, “your latest right-wing conspiracy,” and the driving idea behind the “anti-LGBT backlash in Latin America,” but “doesn’t…
The Strange Public Afterlife of Anthropological Theory
Didier Fassin, in an important recent intervention, directed our attention to the “public afterlife of ethnography.” We as anthropologists do not and cannot expect to control how anthropological theor…
The Docile Ethnographer?
On Self-Censure and Fieldwork “Looking forward to reading more in this series. Would have liked to retweet it, but I’m not touching anything critical until I’m done with…
Ethnography and Street Photography
Two Arts of Serendipity Brent Luvaas Street photography, notes Magnum photographer Alex Webb, is a practice of harnessing serendipity. Photographers never know what they are going to find…
Grounded Dreams?
Hong Kong and Hollywood face the challenges of a globalizing movie economy. Hortense Powdermaker’s analysis of a Hollywood movie industry driven by extreme uncertainty, anxiety, and crisis in…
Watching Movies in Ghana
Re-presenting the stuff of dreams and invisible forces, films feed the popular imagination. “It’s true, it’s true. All these things happen, all these things happen in real life.…
The Accidental Celebrity
Achieving media stardom takes more than luck. It requires hard work and perseverance. City of stars Are you shining just for me? City of stars You never shined…
Film for Good
Can cinema produce social justice? Six decades separate the #OscarsSoWhite movement and the publication of Hortense Powdermaker’s ethnography on Hollywood’s inner workings Hollywood, the Dream Factory…
The Influential Women of and for Anthropology
AN’s contributing editors were asked to identify the ethnographies (and other works) most influential to them, their careers, and their work. Below are descriptions of those ethnographies, ethno…
Defend and Transform
The Fight Forward for Public Education In the aftermath of the US presidential election, policy pundits and even some activists have suggested that diverse schools can help heal…
CFP=Call for Problems
Adapted from Jeremy Tenenbaum/ Flickr CC BY 2.0 Should I take another adjunct position? How do I get through this mound of exam marking? Graduate student healthcare in…
Engagements with Ethnographic Care
On care and self-care as an anthropologist and rape crisis advocate. I came to my work with survivors of sexual violence, initially, out of care. Care about the…
On Not Being Seen
Visibility in the field can be fraught with methodological and ethical dilemmas. “Go ahead inside. I need to get a few things from the trunk,” I told Destiny…
A Nuclear Advocacy Dilemma
Advocacy anthropology does not always mean aligning oneself with an underdog. Nicolas Raymond/Flickr (CC BY 2.0) Since the establishment of our discipline, anthropologists have fretted over the questi…
Writing and Research in a Conflict Zone
For the activist-scholar research can mean navigating between different audiences, modes, and ethics of representation. When the Kony 2012 video went viral, it sparked numerous conversations about Wes…
Introduction to “Ethnographer as Activist”
Grappling with Ethnography and Advocacy in the Field What follows is a transcribed conversation between the authors. It has been edited for length and clarity. iStock Haley Bryant:…
Awkward Objects of Genocide
The Holocaust and Vernacular Arts in and beyond Polish Ethnographic Museums “Krematorium” (“Crematorium”), Władysław Chajec (1904-1986), 1965, Kamienica Górna, Poland. Inventory No. 31395, Collection …
Reproductive Travelers
Examining the migratory pathways of a global reproductive industry. We’ve joined forces with AAA’s latest public education initiative “World on the Move: 100,000 Years of Human Migration”…
Racialization, Affect, and Refuge
How do we begin to grapple with the racialization of empathy? How do we capture, both ethnographically and politically, the differential allocation of sympathy, compassion, and the kind…