Dark Value, a new book published today
I wrote this brief book in 2015 and promptly put it in a drawer and forgot about it. Then a couple of days ago (May 3, 2016), Virginia Postrel posted…
Tag: Uncategorized
Marshall Sahlins on Hocart’s cosmic polity
Lecture from last Friday at SOAS in London; it starts around 30 minutes in to follow Hocart’s lead to comment on cosmology, governmentality, and anthropology.
Deportation, Punishment and Everyday Life
by Ines Hasselberg **Originally posted at University of Oxford website** The UK Borders Act 2007 allows for foreign-nationals sentenced to 12 months or more of imprisonment to be…
The geography of inequality
For Quartz, I wrote about the geography of the unequal economic recovery in the US. Coastal cities with thriving economies have become unaffordable for the average worker; heartland…
Notes on the 9th digital ethnography reading (Boellstorff et al 2012)
By Allister Hill PhD student Digital Ethnography Research Centre (DERC) RMIT University, Melbourne See other posts under Digital ethnography reading group On Wednesday 13 April 2016, we spent…
Notes on the 8th digital ethnography reading (O’Dell & Willim 2013)
By Nicholas Hansen MA student Digital Ethnography Research Centre (DERC) RMIT University, Melbourne See other posts under Digital ethnography reading group Wednesday 09 March (12-1:30 @ B009-04-032)…
Actually Existing Silk Roads
by Magnus Marsden **Originally posted at Hurstpublishers.com.** ‘Our country is at the heart of Asia’, Zia, an Afghan trader in his mid-50s who works in St Petersburg’s Apraksin…
Elizabeth Povinelli: New Book on Geontopower
Elizabeth Povinelli has a new book forthcoming with Duke, details here. The write up on the book is below, followed by a recent presentation on “Toxic Sovereignties in…
Make Ethnography Better
Ethnography has grown in the last couple of decades from a moody, friendless method in the social sciences to the bell of the business ball. But clearly it has…
Urbex in Baltimore
Reporter Jessica Anderson recently interviewed me for this fascinating piece about urban exploration in Baltimore. I enjoyed talking with her about the allure of abandoned/vacant spaces and learning m…
Food…Use It or Lose It?
by Sandy Bonnington Each year 7 million tonnes of food and drink are thrown away in households around the UK with over half of this being perfectly edible…
Two Sections Awarded Funds to Explore Publishing Innovations
The AAA Committee on the Future of Print and Electronic Publishing (CFPEP) approved two proposals on April 11, 2016, for publishing innovations grants, one from the Society for…
Remembering Rana Plaza
by Rebecca Prentice It’s been three years since the most deadly disaster in garment manufacturing history: the April 24, 2013 collapse of the Rana Plaza garment factory building…
5% unemployment is a lie
For Quartz, I wrote about the very misleading 5% unemployment rate, a statistic which discounts 1) the long-term unemployed and the lowered labor participation rate 2) the explosion…
New York values
For the Globe and Mail, I wrote about the New York primary, in a piece published the day before. The piece discusses not only the candidates — three…
how to make TV now (the “whole world” approach)
Natalie Chaidez is the show runner for Hunters (Mondays, 10:00 eastern, SyFy). Recently Sean Hutchinson asked her what she was aiming for. Our idea of aliens is cliched, she replied. She wanted to &#…
Deborah Cramer: The narrow ledge – a tiny bird, an ancient crab, an epic journey
Fascinating new book out from Deborah Cramer, description from Yale follows with a talk from Deborah Cramer below: Each year, red knots, sandpipers weighing no more than a…
An “Ecological Path” in Ecuador’s Yasuní National Park: On the Reflexivity of Oil Infrastructure
By Peter Taber, Arizona State University § Satellite imagery of a small section of the Block 31 road entering the Apaika platform area, taken in 2013. Imagery courtesy of…
Indiana Folk Arts: 200 Years of Tradition and Innovation
Please come out to the Mathers Museum of World Cultures this Sunday afternoon to celebrate the vernacular arts of Indiana and to help launch our state bicentennial exhibition.…
The ‘wicked grin’ test (as a new creative measure)
How do you know when something in our culture is really good? I think it’s when it makes us grin a wicked grin. This is one of those: Dave Chappelle does…
Applying Anthropology for a Safer World
Claim our bodies, claim our right, Take a stand, take back the night! Across the globe, the month of April is a time for communities to mobilize Take…
Cheap Chinese Goods
In a new project, I trace the fortunes of three interrelated communities across four northern Andean cities. Indigenous Otavaleño traders, mestizo apparel producers in the manufacturing cluster of…
If I was going to be interviewed about blogging by The Geek Anthropologist: 15 questions
(… this is very informal…) Why do I blog? When you work outside academia and you’re not actively researching you still want to write, you still want…
En las plazas se sueña en pie
Semi-automatic translation from the original Spanish: Dreaming while standing in the squares. In France today it is not 12 April but 43 March. And in March they will…